Liminal Beings
by neilg
Summary: The 5th Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric materialise on Earth some time in the early Bronze Age where they encounter a local Chieftain and his tribe deep in ritual mourning for the death of the Chieftain's Father. As always, everything is not as it seems...
1. Beginnings

Liminal Beings.

_This story occurs probably after the televised story Black Orchid, and certainly before Earthshock..._

Preface

The marsh creature recoiled, but for some reason it didn't seem quite so violently affected as the others they had come across. More likely, Adric reasoned, it _was_ one of those Marshmen. The Doctor had explained about their adaptability. The thought shocked him. Could they already be developing an immunity?

Adric's cylinder spluttered and fell silent. He tried the valve again, to no avail. Checking the pressure gauge, he saw it read zero. "Varsh – my cylinder's run out!"

"Then leave this to me – get the others back to the Doctor!"

"I can't leave you on your own."

"Adric – don't argue, go!"

...

He was moving along a corridor, through hoops of polished steel, the smooth and shiny floor slipping below scuffed with marks where running feet had been. He was neither running nor walking. He seemed to have no legs or feet at all, but instead appeared to be effortlessly gliding, sailing through the air like a boat moving on the water, and gazing with interest at the metal walls as they drifted slowly by.

He was starting to enjoy himself. He was flying! But he felt that, if he really wanted to make the most of the situation, he would have to learn to control his flight by reaching out perhaps and making contact with a surface. If he could just catch one of the girders with a fingertip maybe...

But it was no good: the walls were beyond his grasp and he couldn't find his legs to kick against the floor, so he just carried on floating without any means of control.

The corridor up ahead forked and briefly he wandered how he would be able to fly into the right fork or the left, and which one it should be, and as he drifted into the left fork with no effort on his part whatsoever he began to feel a sense of unease at his situation, that grew into a fearful anticipation of what lay further on.

The corridor here was brighter. There was a light at its end: a broad stark block of light and a movement, a shadowy flux within the light and suddenly Adric felt a panic of anxiety grip him, and an urge take hold to reach the light that was changing shape now, shrinking downwards as if being squeezed from above, a darkness descending upon it and crushing it flat. He reached out his hand in his panic, stretching his fingers towards the light that was a thinning silver bar now and woke up.

He was in his bedroom. It was dark. His bedroom door was shut and there was a sliver of light coming under it from the corridor outside. He could hear his clock on the table nearby and further away, the hum of the engine, constant like a heartbeat.


	2. Chapter 1

**1.**

The sky was ash and flame and the sun was fire at its centre that poured upon the lake and spread out over the water, and the island below was a piece of charcoal on a sheet of hammered copper.

Two black silhouetted figures moved towards it on a reed-narrow bridge carrying a flat shape between them that rippled and flapped in the breeze and as Bréon watched from the rising bank he touched the broach that pinned his cloak to his breast and drew vigour from it.

The figures reached the island and moved slowly to the structure that rose from its centre and, rising on unseen steps at either side, lay the flat shape down upon it. There were murmurs from the crowd at Bréon's back and then the Wild One came forwards with his wand before him and carved shapes of meaning into the evening air. Fox tails fluttered about his shoulders and his hands moved in great sweeping arcs as he barked through the face of the vixen sounds from the forest and the darkness.

When he was done Bréon stepped forwards and turned and addressed the people who stood all gathered before him, the old ones and the Fathers and the women and the children. They all wore their finest cloaks and their most precious ornaments and the copper glittered from them in the sunset like flames in a hearth.

"This is my Father's body!" he declared, throwing his hand out to the dark shape on the island, "Let the flesh of my Father's body fall away! Let the spirit of my Father travel on the wind! Let the ghost of my Father walk in the Lands of the Dead..." He paused, in reverence, and then, drawing himself up, he held his spear aloft so that its tip pricked golden sunlight from the sky,

"I am my Father's Son! I remain with the Living!"

In the canopy of the woods behind, dark birds scattered screeching into the air.

Bréon fell silent. He was breathing quickly. He felt the lightness in the head and the rushing in the chest that he felt when hunting the boar or the deer.

When it had passed, he spoke again,

"We will have much feasting. We will have meat over the fire. We will dance and we will sing. My Father's first born and my Father's second born will dance and sing," and he felt the smile burst out of him with a sudden sense of warmth and tenderness for all the people. He nodded, "And when we have done these things, we will return and fetch the bones of my Father and we will bury them in the ground," he smiled again and gathered them all in with his eyes, "And then we will have mild Winter and good harvests."

Bréon walked from the slope beside the lake and through his people who honoured him with warm embraces, and some cheered and yelled and rattled their spears against their shields, and as they followed him away from the water and the island the black birds that had taken flight at his cry circled in the sky.

Silence fell on the water and the island.

The birds circling increased in numbers, croaking and cawing. They seemed to become a cloud, billowing about itself, darkening as more birds gathered. Then the cloud moved down, settling on the grass of the island and on the thin planed log that served as a bridge. The birds moved hesitantly in wary hops towards the dark shape that towered above them and cast its long shadow onto the shore of the lake. Tussles and squabbles broke out. Then one of the birds broke from the group and flew to the top of the dark shape and alighted there. It seemed to pause, spreading its wings like hands, its feathers broad like fingers splayed out in a gesture of grace. It hopped in an ungainly lurch onto the flat shape that lay upon the dais and seemed to be searching in it, pecking gently at its surface. Down below, other birds flew closer, emboldened. Then the one up above, seeming to find what it had searched for, pushed its head down between its claws, twisting its beak and tugging, its wings spreading wide suddenly. It fell back with a snap and something in its beak and turned climbing skywards as some of the other birds gave chase. One of those remaining leaped up and another joined it, and then as if a signal had been given the flock seemed to rise and descend as one upon the dais, stabbing and pecking and pulling, their shrieks ringing across the waters that were grey and perfectly still now like a sheets of iron.

"Adric, hold still!"

"If you keep moving about we may hurt you."

"Accidentally."

"Oh, yes, of course. Not on purpose."

There were giggles behind Adric's head but when he tried to turn and look a sharp fingernail prodded his cheek.

"Still!" said Tegan's voice from out of sight in a low growl. Adric scowled, or at least tried to, but his fringe was covering much of his face and any menace he might have been able to convey was undermined entirely by the presence of an orange plastic bowl on his head.

There was a sudden metallic 's_hip-ship_" sound in his right ear that made him wince and he would have raised a hand to fend it off if it hadn't been for the cotton sheet that covered him from the neck down and was tucked in tight under his seat.

"A little more off that side" said Nyssa sidling into Adric's view, leaning towards him, her hands on her knees, studying his left ear with a look of intense concentration. The sound of scissors came close again. Nyssa stared, and decided,

"You'll have to take some more off that side, now."

As she raised a hand to her lips to stifle another giggle Adric's patience finally failed,

"Doctor!" he tried to stand but got tangled in the sheet tied at his neck and ended up falling back into the chair as Nyssa, giving up all pretence now, burst into laughter and Tegan from behind waved her scissors at him,

"Look, if you're not going to behave..."

He tried again to stand and this time made it and then stomped from the room, the sheet flapping around him like a super hero's cape, female laughter twittering in his wake.

"Doctor, they are making fun of me again!"

Adric stood resolutely at the door to the console room. The Doctor, who was knee-deep in a tangle of wiring that had spewed from one of the main console's access panels looked up briefly, saw the boy in his white cape and orange plastic bowl, seemed to hesitate at a reply, then ducked out of sight again behind the flashing instrumentation. With an awkward flourish Adric pulled the cape from his shoulders and flung it to the floor,

"It's not fair!" he hissed trying to prise the bowl from his scalp. Tegan walked passed him into the room,

"Oh stop whining, Adric," with a slight sideways sneer that Nyssa had taken recently to calling her Mara face, "Do you want to look like a girl?"

"I do _not_ look like a girl!"

"You _do_ need a haircut though," said Nyssa making a simple regal assertion. Tegan leaned towards him, her bottom lip pushed out,

"I could put a bow in it for you," and she laughed her big teeth laugh as Nyssa's air of aloof disinterest deflated in a giggle.

"Doctor, tell them!"

From under the console the Doctor's voice came harried but cheerful,

"I am rather busy at the moment, Adric, as you can see," and Adric scowled,

"You're _always_ busy- fiddling with that thing."

"Just some minor adjustments here and there." The Doctor stood. He had what looked like a wrench in one hand and what looked like a net of fairy lights in the other. He was frowning deeply at the fairy lights. Then he smiled and said kindly to Adric,

"Why don't you three just, er..." he waved the wrench vaguely, "run along and play." He put the wrench down and ducked out of sight again. Tegan clicked her tongue,

"Come on you two, we're not wanted here."

Adric pushed passed her,

"Why don't I help you, Doctor?" he began, reaching for the wrench. But, even as the Doctor began, "It's quite all right, thank–" Adric's clumsy fingers sent the object spinning from the console.

There was an "Ow!" from below and the Doctor reappeared massaging the top of his head. Adric started to apologise hurriedly and tried to pick up the wrench from off the floor but in doing so got caught in the sprawling wires and they came away with his foot and a pop and a blue flash.

Suddenly Nyssa was beside him, her small hands on his arm, leading him away from the smell of singed plastic, speaking as if to a very young child,

"Adric, we're only getting in the way here" and behind him Adric heard the Doctor say,

"Yes, why don't you see if you can find the Golf Course, have a quick Round before Tea," in a tone so breezy it could only mean that he was absolutely furious.

Adric elbowed free of Nyssa's grip,

"I was only trying to help!"

"You couldn't be more helpful if you dropped a bomb on the TARDIS!" muttered Tegan through her sneer.

"Yes, well, thank you for trying, Adric, but Tegan and Nyssa have the right idea..."

Adric looked at him with outrage,

"Why do you always side with _them_?".

The Time Lord took a deep breath,

"Adric, I'm not siding with anyone."

"It's always the same!"

"Adric, I am trying to do some very important maintenance work to the TARDIS, for which I require a great deal of concentration, and for which I do not need you three bickering with each other like infants in a school playground!"

His voice had risen to that strident bark, laced with a thin note of exasperation, which normally was excellent at reducing panicking groups of people to a rapt silence but which here and now only provoked very nearly the opposite reaction.

"Now hang on!" Tegan waved her scissors lethally, "He started it!"

"I did not start it!"

"I think the Doctor would rather we left him to his work..."

"Well, you're just as bad as she is!"

"Who's _she_, the cat's mother?"

"I am not as bad as she is!"

"And just what do you mean by that?"

The Doctor's shoulders slumped visibly and as Tegan advanced on him, nearly shouting, "Make her explain that last remark, Doctor!" he discreetly touched a couple of buttons on the panel at his waist.

There was a subtle change in the atmosphere of the room that they all felt, a slight gravitation, a concentration of the air about them - as if an infinite stream of possibilities had suddenly been reduced to just one.

"Ah!" shouted the Doctor over all the noise, "We seem to have materialised!"

His three companions, suddenly silenced, turned towards the window that was expanding in the TARDIS wall behind them. In place of the usual spray of starlight against a coal-black background, a landscape was fading into view.

"Where are we, then?" asked Tegan in a tone that suggested she was reluctant to surrender her belligerent mood just yet. The Doctor pushed some keys on the TARDIS console,

"According to my calculations... " he began, then looked up at the viewing screen.

There was a sky the colour of tin and a low flat horizon and in the foreground a bed of reeds that billowed in a gentle breeze.

"Ah!" said the Doctor.

"Let me guess, Earth?" Tegan's lip curled and she raised her eyes into her sculpted fringe. The Doctor looked down his nose at her,

"Very possibly, yes–" he muttered a little defensively, "Now, let me see..." and delved into the TARDIS' main information port. Tegan walked around him,

"You know, Doctor, you did once promise to show me all the wonders of the Cosmos," she leaned passed him and pulled at one of the more prominent levers bristling from the console. Behind her with a mellow hum the TARDIS doors swung inwards. "They can't all be within a thirty mile radius of the North Circular..."

Tegan went outside.


	3. Chapter 2

2.

As always on her first step outside after a while within the TARDIS' confines, Tegan was struck by the taste and smell of the air that enveloped her, and by the sudden expansion of her physical surroundings.

It was a consistently surprising sensation because, whilst going into the TARDIS was such an obviously startling experience – and she had seen dozens of people startled by it in the last few weeks – and involved so many obvious contradictions and confounded expectations that being alarmed by it began to seem entirely _reasonable_ – coming out again and into normal space with its more predictable boundaries, which should have been the simplest thing in the world, proved every time to come as a bit of a shock. And it was a shock because, although the TARDIS was easily one of the largest confined spaces she had ever been in, _easily_, once you had been in there for a while, just a few days and nights even, it was as if the space just seemed to shrink to fit about you.

There must have been dozens, _hundreds_ of rooms in the ship that she never even knew about, and the Doctor had mentioned galleries and state rooms and swimming pools and a crypt (!) which she had never seen, but after the doors had closed and the Console... well, engine, she guessed it was, started its relentless rise and fall, she had found herself revolving through the same small orbit of rooms and rarely moving beyond them.

The bedroom, the Console room, the bathroom.

There were dozens of bathrooms on the TARDIS, some palatial with ceiling-high mirrors and elaborate gilded moulding, some merely white-tiled and functional like in a hospital, and she had spent the first few days of her travels – between all the craziness – bathing in a different one each morning and evening, testing all the different types of taps, discovering all the places for her robe and towels to hang and dry, trying out the various assorted jars of oils and bath salts that had been left by previous occupants, as though every night were a holiday spent in a different hotel...

But then, quickly it seemed, she had settled on just the one bathroom and the TARDIS had, sort of, collapsed inwards on her, or maybe just fallen away about her and had become a kind of small and even _cosy_ place to be in. The other bathrooms were out there, she was dimly aware, and all the other rooms beyond those, but it was as if she'd drawn a line about herself, a boundary, that included her three rooms and her new friends and beyond which it became increasingly more of an effort to venture.

So, stepping outside where the ceiling seemed to lurch upwards and out of sight and the walls exploded beyond sensing, was always this weird surprise, and liberating.

The air was cool and damp. She could smell the reeds she had seen on the TARDIS' viewing screen, a musty, organic odour, and saw now that they edged a plane of water that stretched away for a good few hundred metres. Islands of rushes like clumps of outsized matchsticks studded the flint grey expanse all over, the water seeming hard like a solid almost, the gentle breeze napping shallow waves across its surface, the sky above vast and silvery white with low flat cloud.

A bird flew overhead, its sudden darting movement making her flinch, and she turned to watch it flit over the reed heads into a canopy of grey coloured trees and out of sight.

"How fascinating!" The Doctor's voice came loudly from behind her making her jump again. He had donned his hat and his long pale red-trimmed coat and was walking passed Tegan staring intently at something which lay on the other side of the TARDIS. Tegan moved to follow him and suddenly became aware that she was standing in water.

"Eow! It's all _wet!"_

The ground beneath her was a tangle of flattened reeds with black mud visible below and water pooling where she stepped.

"It's a good job I've got my high heels on" she muttered pointedly, moving in exaggerated steps to where the Doctor stood. He looked briefly at her approach,

"There are Wellingtons in the TARDIS. I should think. I've told you before about the wardrobes."

Tegan reached him,

"It's all right, Doc, I'll just hang my tights to dry over a radiator..."

The Doctor looked down at her feet briefly and hummed, then turned back to what was before them.

"It's a boardwalk?" suggested Tegan screwing her brow into a frown. "There was one back home, y'know, down at the beach, with a Bar and everything..."

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, then smiled quickly at her,

"More of a causeway, actually, but the intention's the same..."

It was a boardwalk, in the sense that it was a platform of wooden boards obviously made for walking on. This one was about a metre or so across and attached to a forest of thick posts that held it, where they stood at any rate, at nearly chest height above the ground, the timbers grey with age and fringed with withered vegetation. There was the faint scent of rotting fish from the dark oily mud at its feet.

"Whatever it is for, it certainly is a very remarkable piece of engineering." The Doctor reached out and grabbed a hold on one of the posts that rose above the edge of the platform. Lightly, he pulled himself up and stood towering above Tegan. She looked at the wooden boards and the posts, and grunted,

"I've seen better."

The Doctor reached a hand down to her and she took it, scrambling up awkwardly onto the platform and standing by his side.

"Not for quite a while, though," he said gnomically as they surveyed their surroundings from their new vantage point. The boardwalk cut a perfect line through rising banks of bulrush, continuing for a good thirty metres or more on either side of them before being hidden by the encroaching sedge. On the far side thickets of reed gave way eventually to a horizon of dense woodland, the leaves on the trees flushed with the rusty hues of Autumn.

The Doctor was grinning in a way that Tegan nowadays recognised came from a kind of intellectual glee,

"How's that?"

He smiled quickly at her question and walked away along the boards, jumping experimentally, then halting at the platform's edge. He gazed out over the rushes and the water beyond that was now visibly a lake.

"Middle to Late Bronze Age, according to the TARDIS," he declared, "About four thousand years before you were born, Tegan. Very impressive. I wonder where it leads?"

A voice called out,

"I wouldn't call it impressive!" Adric was stepping across the damp ground towards them, hands in pockets, staring at the platform with what was very nearly a sneer, "I'd say it was a fairly crude structure, representative of a culture at the most basic level of development. Primitive. That's what I'd call it. Look, it's held together by string."

The posts where he was indicating were bound with cord so weather worn it had coagulated into a solid mass. Tegan felt herself bridle with indignation,

Hey!" she yelped, "This is _my_ culture, you know!"

Adric mugged superiority in his well-practised way,

"Like I said, _primitive_!"

Tegan scowled at him, then declared loudly,

"I think it's pretty amazing, actually," walking across her new discovery, "Four thousand years, eh Doctor?"

"Oh, give or take a century or two," the Doctor was engrossed. "Considering the technology of the time, and the environment in which it was made, this represents a very impressive feat of construction."

Below them Adric continued with his disdainful appraisal,

"Four thousand years ago," he said with a cocked eyebrow, "the Alzarian civilisation were just beginning their experiments in extra-terrestrial space travel..."

The Doctor straightened,

"Well," he began reasonably, "It's not so much what it is, Adric, as what it stands for."

"And what does it stand for?" asked Adric.

The Doctor hesitated. He took off his hat and rolled it into a tube, then looked around with his hands behind his back.

"It stands for a particular way of seeing the landscape, and therefore," he added with a slightly wistful sigh, "A particular way of seeing oneself."

Adric puffed loudly and aimed a sulky kick at one of the posts near him,

"Superstition!" he mocked, "I certainly don't see what's so impressive about a lake and some poles stuck in the ground..."

The Doctor looked quickly down at him,

"Now, Adric –" he began but the boy interrupted him with a casual observation,

"I don't know why you're so fascinated with these Earth cultures, I really don't. Especially when _this_ is the best that they're capable of after a thousand years of development. I can't see what's so remarkable–"

"And perhaps that is because you are an ignorant boy who hasn't yet the maturity to appreciate what for others must have been an effort of great physical and technical ingenuity!"

A sudden silence filled the air.

Tegan stood blinking at the severity of the Doctor's reply. The Doctor had pushed his hands deep into his pockets and was standing staring fixedly along the length of the causeway and below them Adric was glaring hard at a point somewhere beneath the causeway, his mouth a tight slit with a quiver of movement at the corners and around his cheeks and ears a bloom of crimson suffusing his normally pallid skin.

Tegan shut her mouth with a snap. She tried hard to think of something to say but it was the Doctor who broke the awkward atmosphere,

"Where's Nyssa?" he muttered tersely, glancing towards the TARDIS. "I'm sure she would appreciate the significance of all this."

Adric muttered into his shirt collar,

"Nyssa's inside, checking one of her experiments" and turned and began to walk away. The Doctor called out to him,

"Now where are you going?"

Adric replied without turning his head,

"I'm going for a walk, as it's obvious that nobody wants me around here!"

Tegan called out "Adric!" in a sigh as the boy walked awkwardly through a break in the rushes and out of sight. She turned and sighed a second time, "Doctor?"

The Doctor affected indifference, but wouldn't meet her gaze,

"Oh leave him," he muttered, and strode off along the causeway in the other direction. Tegan hesitated where she stood, then called out,

"But we can't let him just wander away like that! Doctor?!"

"He'll be quite safe," came the Doctor's reply, "Perhaps a little time to himself will cool that hot temper of his."

Tegan tripped into a high-heeled trot after him,

"_His_ hot temper?" she muttered privately.

The TARDIS door opened,

"You'll all be pleased to know that I have just managed to get my protein sample to show ubiquitination defects!" Nyssa's voice trailed away as she appeared at the doorway, a hugely satisfied smile fading as she looked around the just-vacated scene.

She said "Oh" where she stood. She called out,

"Doctor! The TARDIS' computer says that we have materialised on a heavily water-saturated surface!" and glanced around at the bulrushes that the breeze had set nodding. She murmured, "So, I thought I would come prepared." Then with a doleful sniff she turned and walked back into the police box, pulling off her green plastic Wellingtons as she went.

---

You could tell a lot about what the Doctor was feeling by the kind of walk that he employed, mused Tegan Jovanka as she trotted along the decking trying to keep up. She reckoned that he had several different styles of walk, on a scale of steadily increasing momentum, that went from the casual saunter which usually meant he was thinking deeply, right up to what was very nearly a run, which more or less meant that he had reached some kind of decision. He mostly stopped short of actual flat-out sprinting, she considered – except perhaps on the cricket pitch – as if that marked some sort of irredeemable breakdown of all rational thought.

He seemed to do most of his most-important thinking whilst fast asleep. It was like one of those things that Adric could jabber on about – those _inverse_ things... as if the intensity of the Doctor's thinking had an _inverse_ relationship to the speed at which he was moving.

By that reckoning and given what it generally implied when the Doctor was thinking, he was at his most dangerous when standing absolutely still. Which may have explained why his enemies liked to keep him running up and down corridors all the time.

Whatever it was, the Doctor was putting on a pretty good turn of speed right now. This was most definitely an 'upset at yelling at Adric but too obstinate to admit it' turn of pace...

"Doctor, what did you mean when you said it wasn't so much what it is, as what it stands for?" she tried, breaking into another half-jog. The Doctor sped on before her, the tails of his coat flapping behind him.

"I was trying to convey the idea that things are often more important for what they represent, rather than what they merely _are_."

"You mean that this boar– _causeway_ means something more to the people who built it?"

"Not just more, but different"

"You mean, to them this isn't a causeway?"

"In a way, yes!" replied the Doctor still striding. Tegan thought then shook her head,

"But in what way?"

"In a meaningful way, I suppose"

"So, you're saying that this isn't just a way of getting across the marshes, then? This is more like – _Doctor, can we stop walking?_ I'm getting blisters!"

The Doctor came to a halt, spinning in a flurry of coat tails, his hands behind his back. He made a sort of gasp of exasperation that ended suddenly in an almost sigh. His eyes were softer now. He had that gentle near-smile around the mouth that Tegan knew was an expression of benign forbearance. She stopped before him, and smiled sweetly,

"That's better!"

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her. She lifted her chin and said,

"You were telling me about the boardwalk?"

The Doctor looked up and over Tegan's head,

"Yes," he said, "Adric was right in a way. This really is just a lot of poles stuck in the ground..." he hesitated then looked at Tegan with concern in his eyes, "Was I very short with him?"

Tegan shrugged,

"He's just a teenage boy, however good at sums he is. It'll do him good to get yelled at once in a while!"

The Doctor looked away again.

"Hmm!... I sometimes forget what it was like to be that age."

Tegan raised her eyebrows thinking: _You_ were _his_ age?! Then had another momentary sense of the strangeness of things in her life just now, and how she never really thought of the Doctor as a young man– even though, at the moment, he looked not that much older than herself.

"Doctor? The boardwalk?"

The Doctor popped out of his reverie, looked about him and hummed to himself,

"Yes! Fascinating! We shouldn't judge it on our own terms, of course. Otherwise it really would be just a lot of wooden poles. No, this has meaning..." He seemed to fix on something distant and Tegan turned to follow his gaze. "It is profound not just because of what it is, or even who made it, but because of where it has been made. It makes a mark."

"Makes a mark?" Tegan frowned, "On the marsh?"

"Mmm? On the marsh, oh yes! And on the landscape as a whole. But, more importantly, it makes a mark upon the minds of those who live here..." He fell silent. Tegan looked out and saw the sky-reflecting lake and the tufts of grass swaying in the breeze. When the Doctor spoke again his voice was a murmur, "It exists on the edge of things."

He was silent for a moment. Then suddenly he looked down at Tegan and grinned, making her jump,

"I wonder where it ends up!" He moved over to the edge and looked down, and said aloud generally, "You know, the Bronze Age is a remarkable period in your History, Tegan. A lot of things are beginning, a lot of things ending..."

"Doctor," said Tegan stiffly from behind him.

"The end of the Stone Age, the beginning of agriculture, the rise of technology. The advent of the first great social gatherings. It all happens here, you know. Fascinating! I wonder why I've never visited before?"

"Doctor, would you shut-up for a moment!"

The Doctor replied, still staring out at the waters where two swans were frantically treading waves in a laborious effort to get airborne,

"Oh, aren't you even a little curious, Tegan? Wouldn't you like to meet one of your Bronze Age ancestors? Come face to face with your forebears?"

He turned and saw what his companion was staring at. Tegan said flatly,

"I think we both just got the chance..."


	4. Chapter 3

3.

Anger galvanised Adric. He strode across the marsh in great rapid leaps that took in whole streams and wide pools of waterlogged peat. He brushed aside the thick switches of water reed that crowded his way, not feeling the razor edges of their stems and saw over their thrashing heads as if he was suddenly huge, like a giant. His fingertips harboured fire. He felt he could have laid waste to the marsh and the wooden causeway, and... _everything_ in a flick of the wrist. Flames would come from him, some kind of raw energy conducted through his veins and arteries, venting in an all-destroying arc of righteous power...

He stopped suddenly, sending a spray of water up around his boots. His right arm was raised before him, the hand flat, palm down. He said out loud,

"I am _not_ ignorant!" and stood breathing great draughts of air through his nose.

_Ignorant_, him! He studied modular forms before breakfast and elliptic equations when looking for a little light relief!

_Him_, ignorant! With those two, stupid, silly girls on board, and their dressing up and their silly games, even Nyssa who was fairly intelligent for a young girl, and especially Tegan with her short skirts and her red lips...!

A moment passed. The rushes blew in the wind, whispering. The sky overhead seemed huge again, the canopy of steely coloured clouds far distantly sliding by like sheets of painted glass.

Adric lowered his hand.

His voice had sounded quieter than he had expected. He had been expecting a boom of sound with a deep bass note. His voice had been higher, less resonant, the sound of it sucked up and lost quickly into the shifting air above his head. It had been a petulant sound. Childish.

At this thought Adric's anger surged again, coming out of him in a shout and a burst of energy that made him reach for the nearby stem of a bulrush and wrench at it with all his might. But the rush resisted, staying rooted beneath the shallow water so that after a few tugs Adric let it go, kicking at it in his frustration. It stayed upright but at an odd angle, it's leaves crumpled and tattered, and Adric stood in front of it wondering whether he should dig it out at the roots.

He had walked some way from the the causeway but could still glimpse distant parts of it through gaps in the reeds, an odd angular shape against all the vegetation. He wondered if he could get back to it. The marsh was riddled with paths but they went all different ways and never directly, and looking around him now he realised that he had walked into a dead end. Reeds and water barred his way. He couldn't remember the path back.

He turned, his feet splashing, and found himself suddenly aware of how wet his shoes were and how that made his socks cold and uncomfortable – and then that he was only going to have to get wetter if he wanted to get back to the Doctor and, once back how someone would have to say sorry to break the awkward atmosphere – and how that someone would, inevitably, have to be him...

He bit his lip, at the edge of a problem that he wasn't sure could be solved. He had the suspicion that none of this was due to him or even the Doctor in any case, and that other more recently introduced factors had set them both on opposing sides of the equation.

"It was better before _they_ came."

Adric spoke the thought out loud and this time his voice was deeper and did have a measure of gravity to it. And this time it got a reply.

"It was better before _who_ came?"

Adric spun, lost his footing and fell back into the reeds splashing elbow-deep into cold water. He glimpsed a large dark figure with a weird complexity of arms but it disappeared suddenly and he floundered, trying to get himself onto his feet on a ground that gave like a sprung mattress. He reached for something solid and his flailing right hand struck something hard beneath the water. His fingers closed instinctively, he pulled and it came away with his fist. The surprise and the force of the action rolled him onto his front so that, spluttering for air and pushing forward with his arms and tucking in his knees, he managed to get himself onto his feet again.

Adric stood. He was completely soaked, his dark long hair streaming in his eyes, his clothes a horrible cold sensation sucking on his arms and back and legs. He looked around through bleary eyes and saw the figure again, this time low down, crouching, the arms a more usual two and crooked, holding between them an arrangement of sticks and twine that was aimed towards him. A bow and arrow.

"What are you going to do with _that_?" said the figure and Adric suddenly realised that he was a boy, with a boy's voice, maybe not much older than himself. He seemed to be glaring at Adric's right hand.

Adric looked down and there in his grip was a knife, its broad leaf-shaped blade of a dark and lustrous, chocolate-coloured metal edged with bright reflection where the water streamed from it. He wasn't sure what to do with it and briefly thought of throwing it away, but something instinctive took over and he found himself gripping the hard cold handle tightly.

Brilliantly, he answered,

"It all depends on what you're going to do with that!" and waved the dagger's point towards the boy's bow and arrow. The boy's eyes narrowed. The arrow wavered in a small circle that took in Adric's head and shoulders and torso, and Adric saw that the tip of it was a dark grey chip of some siliceous stone shaped with shallow facets that glinted in the daylight as it moved.

The boy was watching Adric closely, his heavy brows knotted with concentration, his eyes hard and glinting like the arrowhead. He had a longish nose and high cheekbones, his cheeks sunken and drawn, dirtied with smears of mud. His hair was a mass of short dark spikes carefully arranged in lines like the spines of some animal.

The arrowhead dipped and slowly the boy stood.

"You're not a ghost," he said softly and nearly to himself. "I could kill you," he added but already he had lowered his weapon.

He was much the same height as Adric. He wore a simple sleeveless tunic and knee-length leggings and a thick looking cloak, all dirty, the yellows and reds and browns of the woven patterns subdued by wear. There was mud on his arms, smears of it, like tattoos around his shoulders and down, blueish and intricate.

"Where are you from, stranger?" said the boy and Adric replied, still with his dagger raised,

"I'm from Alzarius."

The boy frowned,

"I have not heard of that village."

"It's not a village – it's a planet," said Adric because it was true. "It's in E-space."

The boy seemed to accept this information equably. The bow and arrow was by his side now, hanging limply from the fingers of his right hand. With his other hand he plucked at the material of his tunic at his chest, then waved vaguely towards Adric,

"This is gold?" he asked.

Adric looked down and saw his star-shaped badge. The one he had been awarded for excellence in his Mathematics class. He reached up and turned it between his fingers, muttering thoughtfully,

"It's gold plated, I think."

The stranger said,

"What is it? A flower?"

"It's a star!" yelped Adric, appalled at the idiocy of the observation.

"Gold is for the Sun," said the boy.

"The Sun _is_ a star," said Adric speaking slowly because it was so obvious. The boy nodded in consideration,

"Your Father is a Chieftain?"

Adric frowned at him, bottom lip out. The boy continued, matter-of-factly,

"My Father is a Chieftain," and pulled the neck of his cape around his shoulder so that Adric could see a broach that was pinned there. An oval of bright, orange-coloured metal patterned with dimples and etched lines. The boy spread his hand and made a sweeping motion,

"These are my Father's lands," and looked at Adric squarely, as if he had issued some sort of challenge. Adric stared at him. Water was dripping from his hair into his eyes but he tried hard not to blink.

"My Father is dead," said Adric quietly. The boy stared back, levelling his gaze as if his dark eyes were the tips of two more arrows.

"My Father is dead, also," he said softly. "These are his lands." He hesitated and when he spoke again his voice was louder, his manner declamatory, "I am Mahl, son to Brionath whose lands these are, brother to Bréon who is Chief of the next village," he gestured passed Adric. There was silence. It occurred to Adric that Mahl was waiting for a reply. He said,

"I had a brother once, but he died," and then couldn't find anything more to say. A trickle of water had crept to the edge of his nose and, in that moment, ran coldly around his nostril so that he sniffed and automatically wiped his forearm across his face, and it wasn't until he had done this that he realised what his action may have conveyed. He said hurriedly,

"But I don't care," and rubbed his hand across his eyes, smearing the wet hair away so that it wouldn't drip again. He lowered his hand, angry at himself. "I don't care – he's dead and that's all there is to it." He glared at Mahl, daring him to disagree.

The boy seemed to be frowning at him, his dark eyes flickering up and down as if searching him for something. After a moment Adric felt awkward and was tempted to say "Pop your eyes back in, nosey parker!" which was something Tegan had said to him more than once back in the TARDIS, when the boy spoke,

"Where are your tribe?"

Adric's hesitation was more one of considering how he could explain E-space without the use of a paper and pencil, a calculator, a ruler and, ideally, a four-dimensional holographic VDU, rather than simply a failure to understand the question but Mahl elaborated quickly, waving his hand at the surrounding wetlands,

"The people you travel with, where are they?"

And Adric's reply came from somewhere deep inside and seemed to carry him across a kind of threshold in an impulse that he felt like the tipping of a balance,

"I'm not travelling with anyone," he pushed his chest out in the way that Mahl had when declaring his lineage, "I travel on my own!"

Mahl nodded, looked about him, something seeming to curl the corners of his mouth. He looked at Adric again,

"You are lost," he said.

"No," said Adric quickly. The other boy laughed and his teeth flashed white in the grubbiness of his face,

"You are not a ghost," he gestured to where the path ran into water and reeds, "and you are not a fish." He laughed again, a surprisingly light and highly-pitched sound, "What is your name, Starboy?"

Adric paused, judgement teetering on the balance again. He said,

"My name is Adric," but kept his expression stern and warrior-like. Mahl nodded, he turned, his arm swinging after him,

"Come with me, Starboy."

After a moment Adric followed him, looking down as he walked and tucking the dagger through one of the belt loops of his trousers. He felt something on his chest that stopped him and saw a hand and an arm outstretched and Mahl standing close.

"That is not yours," said the boy nodding towards the dagger, "It belongs to the ghosts."

"I don't believe in ghosts," Adric said.

Mahl stared hard at him, then laughed his boyish laugh.

"You should do," he said softly and turned and walked on into the marsh.

Adric frowned and followed him.

---

There was a man and he had a spear and the first thing the Doctor did on seeing him was to stick out his hand, smile and say,

"Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is my companion Tegan," in a manner which suggested that his next sentence was going to be, _"I was wondering if you could direct us to the British Embassy."_

This did not surprise Tegan. She had seen him offer his hand in this way a countless number of times to dozens of different people, some of whom weren't, in a strictly limited sense, even people, some of whom weren't actually all that glad to see him and some of whom did not in fact have hands. It didn't seem to matter. It was as if he considered the handshake a universally recognised manner of greeting whose meaning would transcend whatever barriers to inter-special communication circumstances could put in its way, including an actual absence of hands to shake. The sad thing, from Tegan's point of view anyway, was that on the whole, it did.

She _hated_ that.

Once, back home when she was ten or eleven, she had spent days learning what she had been told on good authority was an authentic form of Aboriginal greeting so that she could use it on the ladies who came in from the nearby Settlement to work in the Orchard, only to receive on doing so the startling response: "_Christ,_ love! That was a bloody mouthful! Does your Mum know you're up here on your own?..."

It was like being given a key to the door of a secret garden and then finding out that they'd knocked all the walls down.

She had thought of that as a cultural disaster at the time, and still did – as if the apparent advantages of a common etiquette disguised what was really just a kind of deep Racism; an intolerance of diversity. It was one of the things that had set her adolescent mind on wanting to become an Air Stewardess (after the initial childish infatuation with the hair and the Uniform, of course): that sense of going to other cultures, experiencing other ways of being, escaping the Britishness that she didn't feel was truly hers and which separated her from her Father's generation.

Of course, the Doctor was the least Racist person she had ever met, and of course the TARDIS itself played tricks with what they said so that they were in fact speaking a foreign language, or the other people were speaking English, or maybe they just heard it (she couldn't remember the Doctor's explanation), whatever, they all understood each other perfectly... but nevertheless, it was the underlying assumption of cultural superiority that annoyed her, or at least the suggestion of it. That English-Colonial-White-Man-thing that was never quite stated but was hinted at in the Public school accent and cricketer's sweatshirt, and the outstretched hand.

The man (to Tegan's secret delight) did not take the offered hand, but stood where he was, his spear levelled towards them. His dark hair was long and tied back tight against his skull and he wore a beard, and the face that stared out through all this hair was not old, Tegan felt, but worn and weather-tanned. His clothes were voluminous: a short-sleeved tunic, trousers, a cloak that ballooned around him like a shell, dappled with coloured patterns and finely woven – she could see that: simple but carefully made.

The Doctor lowered his hand and said,

"Ah well, I see" in the slightly brusque tones of someone resigned to taking the difficult route towards making an acquaintance. The man said,

"What is your tribe, strangers?" and Tegan suddenly realised that there was a note of panic, of fear even in his voice. The Doctor looked her way,

"Well, I'm not sure we..." and as he did so the man jabbed the spear towards them whilst taking a step backwards. The Doctor raised his hands as if surrendering, "Now, steady on!"

"This is a sacred way," said the man, the panic now obvious in his tone, "Only Elders and Priests may walk here."

Then Tegan stepped forwards. She stood with her legs firmly planted and her hands on her hips.

"In that case there is nothing wrong with us being here," she said, "This man is the most ancient of our tribe, and I am a... Priestess." She kept her voice serious and important and stared at the man as though to question her would, like her Mum used to say, bring the whole bloody sky crashing down on his head! He was a short man anyway, probably no taller than Nyssa, and the panic had got into his eyes. She didn't think he had caught the hesitation but there was a silence which followed her declaration that, if she didn't act quickly, might allow him time to think.

"Yes," she went on, "A Priestess of the great... god.. of the Air... who we worship," she waved a hand upwards, straining for inspiration, "The great... Air Australia, who sends us on... long journeys in... giant... metal birds?" She stopped, inspirationed-out. "We come in peace?" she suggested, offering a hand.

There were shouts from the rushes further along the causeway and two men appeared, hurrying towards them.

"Bran! Who is there?"

"Have you found him?"

They were both carrying spears.

The Doctor leaned discreetly over towards Tegan as the men approached,

"The _most ancient_ of your tribe?"

"Well, I had to say something," she muttered back through gritted teeth, "He could have killed us."

The Doctor sighed, shaking his head, beginning,

"Nonsense–!" but the man pushed his spear at him, its wavering tip centimetres from the Doctor's nose.

"He is not here, my Chieftain!" The man yelled behind him, waving his weapon towards Tegan in shaky defiance as he found his concentration tested by his colleagues" sudden appearance. "These are strangers from another tribe," he went on, "This one is an Elder, and this a Witch."

"I am _not_ a W–" began Tegan affronted, but the Doctor poked her with an elbow.

The two new arrivals reached them. One was like the first man, short and compact, but the other was taller with a younger-looking face and a neatly cropped beard. His clothes were different too, trimmed with red and green, a shaggy pelt fashioned into a cloak swinging from his shoulders. Tegan noticed gold about his wrists and fingers and across his long throat.

It was this man who took the lead, easing his companions spear groundwards with a slender but firm hand, his own weapon held vertical and unthreatening. He looked at Tegan and the Doctor in turn and then smiled,

"I am Bréon, son of Brionath and Chieftain of the lands through which you walk. You are welcome here."

---

"Where are we going?"

Adric hopped across another patch of water. They had been walking a short time but already it seemed that they were deeper into the marsh. Rushes towered above them, pale and spearlike, their feathered heads wafting in the wind. Wherever Adric trod, water seeped above his shoes – Mahl, he noticed, was barefoot, and for all the protection and comfort that his sodden footwear now gave him, Adric might as well have been too.

They were travelling a definite track, not a path as such but a route worn through the marshalled reeds and across the muddy ground by careful use.

"Are we going back to the causeway?" asked Adric anxious at the prospect but nevertheless keen to see something in all the reeds that was familiar.

"The walkway is sacred," said Mahl as he walked, "It is death to use the walkway. Where were you going before you got lost?"

"I wasn't lost," said Adric quickly. Mahl's high laughter came from ahead,

"Where do you want me to take you?" he called back. Adric thought, then asked,

"Where do you live? Do you live in your brother's village?"

"I did once," replied Mahl, "Now I live in my Father's lands."

They walked on, climbing one after the other over a fallen tree that lay like a gate across their way, tangled and greasy with mosses and lichen, then continuing side by side. Adric frowned. He said,

"I don't understand how these can be your Father's lands if your Father is dead? You did say he was dead, didn't you?"

Mahl looked at him. Adric raised his eyebrows simply. It seemed like a reasonable question to him. Mahl looked away,

"He is dead."

Adric gave it some thought, then asked,

"What did he die of?" as if asking for sodium chloride at the dinner table.

"What did _your_ Father die of?" asked Mahl with a quickness that was almost vicious.

Adric shrugged. The corners of his mouth turned downwards slightly. He replied straightforwardly,

"I never knew my Father. I was adopted when Varsh... when I was a baby."

Mahl said,

"Varsh was your brother?"

The reeds swirled around them in an eddying breeze as they walked, as if a hand had brushed them casually in passing.

"How did your brother die?"

They had stopped. Mahl was standing before Adric and facing him, almost barring his way. For a moment Adric thought the boy was merely angry at him for asking about his Father, and he felt a sudden shot of adrenaline spread through his stomach at the prospect of a fight – but then he realised that Mahl was simply waiting for an answer to the question he had posed, which was there between them in the air, it seemed, a pointed and painful thing aimed at Adric's heart.

"I –," he began, but Mahl stopped him with a raised hand and turned to look through the reeds behind. He crouched and urged Adric down with a firm grasp on his shoulder.

They waited, crouching, Mahl listening intently. Adric began to speak but Mahl hushed him with fingers at his lips.

He crept across to where the reeds began beside their path, peering through. He turned and beckoned towards Adric.

A familiar blue box poked above the rush heads not far from where they hid, and a little further on Adric could see the horizontal of the causeway and a dark reddish coloured figure perched upon it.

Mahl shifted a little, moving the reeds gently apart with his hand.

"Who is she?" he muttered, staring intently.

"Nobody," said Adric quickly "Let's go."

Mahl brushed Adric's hand from his arm and continued to stare,

"Do you know her? She is beautiful!"

Adric looked, frowning hard,

"No she's not! She's... a _girl_."

Nyssa was reading (one of her Chemical Abstracts books, guessed Adric) and suddenly looked up, gazing out towards where the two boys were hiding in the reeds.

Adric pulled at Mahl's arm and hissed,

"Come on!" and Mahl, caught by surprise, overbalanced and fell back, sprawling in the boggy ground. The boy rolled and was up on his haunches in an instant, his hands fists.

"_Doctor, is that you?_"

Mahl and Adric crept quickly back to the reeds and looked out.

"Is someone out there?" Nyssa had stood, her book set down on the causeway behind her, and was staring out over the marsh in their direction.

"Who is she?" hissed Mahl angrily at Adric who snapped back,

"I don't know!"

"Adric? Adric! Are you playing a silly game?"

"Ha!"

Adric ignored Mahl's taunt, staring out at the girl who was fetching her book and moving cautiously over towards the TARDIS. Nyssa hesitated at the doorway, peering out suspiciously at her surroundings, then went in, disappearing from view.

Mahl stood, staring, and Adric stood beside him. At length, Mahl asked,

"What's her name, Starboy?"

Adric glared at him, but then, relenting, replied,

"Nyssa... she travels with me and the Doctor and Tegan."

Mahl took a moment to absorb this. Then he said,

"And why did we hide from Nyssa when she called?"

Adric said, sheepishly,

"I was hiding because I have run away..." and then because Mahl's silence seemed to beg the question, he added, "They don't take me seriously. They treat me like a boy. I'm not a boy..."

Mahl looked at him unsmiling, and nodded, and the expression seemed to expand beyond its intrinsic simplicity into a huge and generous gesture of acceptance. An embrace.

"Are you hungry?" asked Mahl. Adric hadn't thought much about it until now, but realised that he was. "Then we will eat!" And with a grin Mahl walked away along the path through the reeds. Adric followed.

---

The window on the TARDIS wall showed a view from one of its all-spying Surveillance cameras. Nyssa watched the two boys disappearing into the bulrushes, her book held thoughtfully to her chin. She watched them out of sight then pulled a lever on the TARDIS' console panel. Behind her the main doors slid inwards and open with a gentle whirring hum.


	5. Chapter 4

4.

Meeting relatives face to face for the first time was always a disappointment, in Tegan's experience.

Take her Aunt Vanessa, who throughout Tegan's childhood had been a distant relative in the sense of living on the wrong side of the world, and who had appeared, from such a distance, to be this hugely eccentric and exotic _grande-dame_, who spoke on the phone like the Queen having just nipped out of a Sixties Jazz Club at three in the morning, and who shared photographs with glamorous-seeming people from the West End Stage ("I am a Theatrical Agent, Tegan _dahling_ – _much_ more exciting than being an _actress_..."), and who you might imagine wore a Mink coat all the time and smoked through an ebony cigarette-holder.

Well, the Mink was right, but she smoked horrible little roll-ups and lived in a rather shabby flat in a fading, once-fashionable district of London that was miles outside of the West End, and when Tegan had met her for that first time at Heathrow's Arrival Lounge her first impression had been just how small her Mum's sister seemed; shrinkingly small, as if there must have been some strange reversal of the rules of perspective and, instead of diminishing with distance, her Aunt had grown bigger the further away she got.

She had seemed old, too – by comparison to Mum – and sickly in a sun-starved way, and there was little of any family resemblance. Bits of her Tegan recognised – her mouth was Mum's, and Tegan's own, that trapezoidal pout – but the rest of her just belonged to this grey old lady, pale with lurid green eyelids and just like any old lady, really. Disappointing.

And so it was with the three Bronze Age men who were walking beside her now.

She was dimly aware that these were relatives of hers, possibly, most probably on her Mum's side which hadn't ended up in the Baltics at some point in their past. And she vaguely realised that the History which she marked the end of, which included Wars and Empires and Elizabeth the First and, oh... the Invasion of Australia by White Men, and Auschwitz, and the invention of Television and International Airlines... all of that was yet to come for them and in some way, like snowflakes before avalanches, a direct result of them. But still, she couldn't help feeling, somehow, disappointed.

They were all rather short for one thing, except the younger one, Bréon, but even he was barely Tegan's height, and they were all, if not skinny, then lean, sinewy, like wild animals. They ought to have been bigger, impressive. Noble. Not ordinary and smiling, and given to easy laughter and friendly invitations to share the hospitality of their Village.

Maybe Tegan had grown cynical, expecting all their encounters to be hazardous and threatening. Maybe this was how these thing just _ought_ to happen.

They followed the causeway for another hundred metres or so before it ran out into a dried dirt track across grassland. The Lake lay behind them like a flat mirror. Trees and hedgerow took root and burgeoned beside them, but the horizon stayed low and broad, broken here and there by sparse Autumnal woodland.

Bréon spoke to them excitedly, asking who they were and how far they had travelled and at one point mentioning the leafy stalk that the Doctor had pinned to his lapel, asking if it was a Tribal badge.

"Oh yes," muttered Tegan nearly to herself, "We are definitely of the Tribe of the Sacred Celery..."

The Doctor did not explain the Celery – he never did – but was otherwise talkative, and Tegan took this as a good sign. He was also wearing his hat again, which was another good sign. The hat tended to come off at the slightest suggestion of uneasiness.

The conversation had dwindled into a bit of a lull when the Doctor said suddenly,

"Who were you looking for, when you bumped into us?" and in such an offhand manner that Tegan's curiosity was immediately peaked. Bréon glanced at him but replied simply,

"One of our Tribe has been lost in the marsh for two nights now. We are concerned for him."

The Doctor nodded,

"The marsh is evidently a very dangerous place. Which is why you took your weapons with you, I suppose."

Bréon smiled at him and Tegan became aware again that three in their number were carrying spears.

"There are wild beasts in the marshes."

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully.

"I imagine it could be very easy to get lost in the Lands of the Dead," he said.

Tegan frowned at the term but Bréon accepted its use without remark. He nodded at the Doctor,

"The ways through the marshes are tangled."

"Hmm," the Doctor was thoughtful, then went on, "Like I said, it must be very easy to get lost in the marshes. Especially if you wanted to."

Bréon laughed. He looked over towards the Doctor who was affecting a preoccupying interest in the hedgerow,

"You have the Vixen's mind, Doctor. Very well. My brother has run away from our village. He is a boy. He has a young head and my Father's temper. We had an argument and he ran into the marsh. Now we wish to bring him back home."

A slight and satisfied smile played on the Doctor's lips,

"Teenage boys, eh?" he muttered and glanced briefly towards Tegan, then said warmly, "I can understand your Father's anxiety. He must be very worried."

"My Father died in the Summer," said Bréon, "Now he is with the Ancestors."

The smile that had played constantly on his lips flickered and went out and Tegan saw Bréon look away to hide his face. Beside her the Doctor spoke quietly, his hat suddenly in his hands,

"I'm very sorry to hear it."

Bréon acknowledged him with a nod and the smile rekindled briefly,

"The Ceremonies have been performed and the Rituals observed. We have done what must be done. I am Chieftain of my Tribe and the care of it is now mine. The Ancestors are with us always, Doctor..." He paused and Tegan saw him frown momentarily, as if he'd thought of something suddenly that he did not like. It passed but he did not smile immediately, declaring suddenly in a loud voice, as if addressing someone other than just her and the Doctor, "We live in the Land of the Living!"

They walked on for a moment or two in silence, Tegan feeling more than a little awkward but unable to tell from his expression what the Doctor thought. Bréon's companions were quiet as usual and solemn, giving no impression that they had found their leader's outburst alarming. She was looking towards them when something caught her eye, further out over the fields, that made her stumble whilst walking and stare.

The path they were following had taken them into what in this low lying landscape passed for a valley. A low hill of herd-cropped grass rose beside them, its crest a subtle curve unbroken by trees or shrubs but surmounted by a green mound, distinct against the white sky. On the mound, dark in silhouette, and too far away to distinguish the features of, was a figure, naked limbs quite discernible, one arm outstretched and grasping a wooden staff, the torso an undefined patch of dark, shimmering it seemed with a fluttering, tremulous motion and above that, the shape of a head with large vertical wedge-shaped ears.

Tegan felt a shiver run through her. The creature was watching her, she was certain. She looked ahead at the little ambling group she was trailing after but none of them seemed to have noticed it. She looked back and the figure was still there, motionless except for the flurry of its... clothes, she hoped, although it could have been long fur or feathers, she couldn't be sure. The head, she was more certain, was _not_ human and had dingo-like ears, although dingoes did not seem right in this part of the World – unless they were more common here in the Bronze Age. There was the suggestion of a snout too, catching the light, high up on the thick neck.

"_Doctor_," she hissed and hurried up to him, pulling the sleeve of his coat. He looked at her, startled and a little cross suddenly, as if she had interrupted a reverie, but then his expression softened. A quizzical smile. She gestured over his shoulder, towards the hilltop and he followed her indication.

The mound was vacant. The sky above it high and white. The Doctor looked back at her and for a moment Tegan thought that he must have guessed at what she had seen as he nodded, his eyes narrowing slightly, and smiled a tight smile of solemn assent.

"A burial mound," he muttered discreetly to her. He patted her shoulder gently and moved on leaving Tegan to stare at the empty hill, searching for signs that the figure she had seen had been real.

It _had_ been real, Tegan knew it. She did not believe in ghosts.

Being with the Doctor had taught her that most things had a rational explanation. Even if they weren't always believable explanations. Ghosts came out of a fear of the unknown, a fear of the dead.

_The Lands of the Dead_. The Doctor's comment echoed in her mind but she silenced it with a sudden indignant effort.

_Kids believe in Ghosts_.

She could hear her name being called, coming to her on the breeze that was pushing the steel coloured clouds behind the green mound on the hill. It was distant but urgent sounding and familiar. She frowned. She heard her name again, pleading.

She turned. The group was waiting for her further along the path. Beyond them the ground dipped and then swelled slightly into a wide and gradual slope. Where it met the horizon, the grass seemed to break like a wave against a wall, rearing up into a shaggy green bank, a metre or so high. Midway along this was a gate, wooden, grey and sombre, although adorned with pennants of cloth and strange fluttering objects that waved and swarmed in the wind, giving the whole thing the eerie impression of being alive. Beyond this in the air, just visible against the brightness of the clouds, were faint trails of smoke.

"Tegan?" the Doctor called again. She blinked at him, then ran over, glancing once briefly behind. As she reached them, the Doctor said,

"Bréon here tells me that today is a feast day for his Tribe, and wants to invite us both to the festivities. Isn't that nice?" Tegan began a few stumbling words of agreement but the Doctor went on, "He also has a rather interesting favour to ask of you."

Tegan stared expectantly, a little surprised at being the sudden focus of attention. The Doctor's manner had seemed a little odd too, seeming faintly smug.

Bréon spoke, clearing his throat first and proceeding timidly,

"This is a day of feasting for my people. We would be honoured if the Doctor and his Priestess feasted with us and if you were to speak the rituals and cast any prayers that you have for such an occasion." He smiled, his face open. His eyes were a vivid green, Tegan noticed, like precious stones shining against the ruddy tan of his skin. He had reached out to touch her arm as he had addressed her, but now he withdrew his hand quickly.

He nodded and smiled again and, nodding and smiling, began to walk up the gentle slope towards the gate. His companions went after him and Tegan watched them for a moment or two before closing her mouth. The Doctor lay a hand on the small of her back, propelling her gently forward.

"You have obviously impressed our hosts," he said in that soft way of his that was not quite sarcasm. Tegan nodded, staring up towards the gates which were opening now with people coming out.

"Has he just asked me to perform some sort of Ceremony?" she gulped.

"Ooh, yes, it would seem so." The Doctor nodded, "He appears to think that you're some sort of Holy Woman. I wonder what gave him that idea?"

"I only said it to save our lives!" hissed Tegan but the Doctor just looked down his nose at her and walked away.

"Oh..." Tegan's lip curled, "... _Rabbits_!"

---

The Village came out, enveloped them and pulled them through the gate and into itself. People chattered and laughed easily in the way that Bréon had done, coming close to Tegan and the Doctor, acknowledging them with a smile, a nod, a gesture, a gentle touch on the arm, and then moving apart as the two newcomers made their way towards the middle of the settlement. They wore clothes of subtle colour and pattern and jewellery of shells and dark beads and, occasionally, of gold or a darker metal. Some men and older boys stood apart a little way and watched curiously with arms folded, chewing casually and spitting with disinterest, at their side in a line a group of long haired dogs, like Border Collies, with wide mouths and lolling tongues and a constant expression of eager anticipation on their faces. Women with braided hair as long as their waist (Tegan felt her usual pang of jealousy!) came forward eagerly with babies in their arms and children hanging onto their long skirts, and smiled and reached out and nodded.

The Village itself was a huddled group of four large, round structures with low conical roofs of thatch mottled with mosses and tufts of grass, that squatted at the edge of an expanse of tread-worn turf, all ringed about with the low and, when you got close to it, very unimposing earthwork. Fires smouldered in rounded piles of grey ash before each dark doorway and by each building stood a tall wooden post, a trimmed tree trunk, adorned in the way of the gate with pennants and feathers that bristled in the breeze.

Bréon took them passed the buildings and on into a field of grass at the centre of which a wide circle of carved tree trunks were arranged like benches about a broad patch of grey earth. The spoor of a great fire lay at the scorched heart of it, piebald chunks of charred wood collapsed in the pale feathery ash, and a pile of fresh firewood had been stacked at the periphery as large as a garden shed. Tegan picked her way through a mess of broken crockery and the jagged shards of smashed earthenware pots as ahead of her the Doctor observed,

"You have been feasting rather a lot, lately, I see?"

From ahead Bréon laughed,

"In my village we feast every day, Doctor! We sing and we dance every day! There is always enough for feasting!"

The Doctor grinned back at Tegan,

"Absolutely! There's always a reason for a good feast, Tegan! What do you think?"

Tegan responded with a vague grunt, preoccupied with walking through the long grass in her heels.

The field sloped away on their right hand side for twenty metres or so down to the banks of a river, and Tegan realised with a mental snap that it must feed into the Lake they had seen back near the Causeway. There was another building down there by the riverside, a smaller version of the ones behind them but with a tall wattle fence that entirely surrounded it, completely obscuring the doorway and creating what looked like a sort of courtyard area in front of it. It appeared empty, and no one had emerged to view the arrival of the two strangers. The river bank below it was a quagmire of kicked up mud, pocked with the marks made by drinking animals, and there were sprinklings of dried up droppings here and there but Tegan searched in vain for the livestock, disappointed not to see any sheep. _Hmm! Sheep shit!,_ she thought, breathing in deeply. _Strange,_ _what reminds you of home!_

They were being taken towards a larger roundhouse set apart from the main village, within an enclave of trees. A raised bank of turf, surmounted by a palisade of silver-grey wood that rose in a gradual slope, curled out from either side of the dwelling and reached towards them like outstretched arms. The people hung back as Tegan and the Doctor went on, obeying the limits of some unmarked boundary, watching and chattering amongst themselves as the two entered the embrace of the Chieftain's house.

The corridor of turf and fence drew them into a snug and intimate space that made the village and the villagers behind seem, somehow, detached. A quietness descended. Bréon beckoned them beyond the threshold and, ducking their heads beneath the lintel of wood, they entered the gloom of the building.

It reminded Tegan of the barn that had stood dishevelled and unused at the edge of her Father's property, where she had played and held sleep-overs and had her first kiss. There was straw on the floor and the faint, sweet and not unpleasant smell of animal dung and a glow of daylight from beneath the eaves that described a broad circular area of a dozen or so metres across. At its heart, directly before them, a fire burned like a cluster of cherry coloured fairy lights, and around the fire, an arrangement of log benches where a few people were now seated – indistinct shapes to Tegan's unadjusted sight – who moved apart as they entered.

Bréon ushered them towards the logs as anxious to accommodate as a maître d' on Opening Night, uttering urgent orders towards one of the figures – a young woman, Tegan could see now – who hurriedly went away into the shadows and came back with what seemed like two small black disks. There was, Tegan noticed, a pot nestling in the embers, and the woman dipped the objects– bowls obviously– into it and brought them over.

Tegan took one. It was clay and filled with liquid, steam curling from its brim enveloping her in a tangy candied scent. Beside her the Doctor muttered a thank you and sniffed the contents then tentatively sipped. He smiled and looked around,

"Rosehip tea!" he pronounced, "Delicious!"

There were sudden voices from outside and the glare of the doorway flickered as a number of people filed in, all men, with big beards and long braided hair, pulling on coats of leather and fur as they entered, breathless and muttering as if their attendance had been hastily required, dutiful but inconvenienced like office workers obeying the Fire Drill. One after the other they went to the centre of the circle and knelt and nodded briefly towards Bréon who was sitting now beside the Doctor and facing the doorway. Then each turned and found a seat in the semicircle.

Someone sat by Tegan's side, heavy and close, the sweet and sour smell of unwashed body drifting from him, his thick arm near her leg, dark wiry hair curling across the knuckles of his hand which was the colour of shammy leather. She inched along the bench nearer the Doctor.

"My people," Bréon spoke, raising his hands and looking at the few assembled men, "We have guests. The Doctor is a wise man from a far away village, and Tegan his Priestess –" (Tegan leaned forward with her mouth open but the Doctor deployed a discreet elbow and she sat back silent, looking cross.) "They have come far. They will share our feasting tonight. We welcome them as friends."

A vague and, Tegan thought, only half-hearted murmur of approval made its way round the gathering. Then one of the men, lank haired and bearded and older than Bréon by some years, with a necklace of small white periwinkle shells and across his knees a long bright copper knife, leaned forwards and spoke,

"Chieftain of our Village, you are son of Brionath who was wise and valiant, who saw the fall of the Sun, who spoke with the ghosts, who made the ford at the River of the Bears – his name shall ever be held in high esteem amongst our people – Chieftain, there has been talk, amongst the women mostly, but it has come to my ears and the ears of some of the other Fathers..."

Bréon, smiling, raised a hand,

"Fintan," he said, "Who is honoured and respected in the village, _what_ have you heard?"

The man called Fintan hesitated though not, it seemed, from any trepidation at what he wanted to say but rather, thought Tegan, from the sort of world-weary reluctance to voice something he knew for a fact would be a _bad thing_.

He reminded her of her Granpa Jovanka, on that day when she had announced her intention _not_ to study to become a Lawyer (she'd never been bright enough for that stupid idea in any case), but to travel the world instead: all calm patience in the face of a changing world's young foolishness. Fintan spoke,

"They say you have asked for all the herds to be butchered for the Feasting?"

Bréon sat smiling for a moment and watching him Tegan suddenly thought "beatific" without really being sure she knew precisely what it meant.

"This is so," said Bréon to a few stifled murmurs from the assembled. Fintan frowned, and though he sounded reasonably calm Tegan could see a fury rising behind his eyes ('Oh yes, Saba Jovanka, an _Air Stewardess_!...') as he said,

"All of them?"

"They are not needed now. We will keep what we do not use for the Ceremony," and Bréon gestured towards the roof of the hall. Tegan looked up and was surprised to see a ceiling stocked like a Butcher's larder, marbled haunches of meat suspended in the shadowy roof space.

One of the other men in the assembled group was speaking, sounding less calm than Fintan had,

"Then we will hunt in the Winter?"

"We will live on berries and nettles," muttered the man sitting beside Tegan.

"We will Feast!" said Bréon loudly and not a little sternly. "And the land will provide."

"Chieftain, we are opening the grain stores that your Father dug and it is not yet the beginning of the Winter!"

"Chieftain, your Father hunted more bears than are scales on a fish! – My boy has not hunted once this Summer! You have taken away his spear, do not take away his manhood!"

Bréon stood, hands outstretched and motioning the gathering voices of discontent to silence. Tegan was aware that the meeting was becoming fractious and that tempers were only being managed because of her and the Doctor's presence, but also that this restraint was reaching its limit.

However, before Bréon could speak there was movement at the doorway and a man entered the hall. He was smallish and slim, but in the way of someone who had been tempered by a relentlessly physical existence: all excess of fat and skin worn away, his naked arms and legs scrawny with knotted muscles. He wore a simple leather smock tied at the waist with a leather belt from which hung what looked to Tegan like an array of small weapons.

He stood before the quietening assembly, his feet set apart, sparse ginger coloured hair straggling across the pale dome of his skull and hanging in a lank curtain over his shoulders, glaring along the gristly white beak of his nose with sunken eyes like pieces of coal. His gaze moved around the room settling eventually on the Doctor and then on Tegan. He spoke, his voice a mumble through the scrub of his beard, husky and deep,

"Are you from the West?" he asked.

The Doctor, who had been watching the proceedings with the rapt expression of a schoolboy at a bad tempered PTA meeting, stuttered suddenly, glancing briefly at Tegan, then replying,

"Er, no. Not exactly. Although it all rather depends upon which direction you are walking in..."

"They have nothing to trade, Tubal" said Bréon calmly, "They are here for the Feast."

The man called Tubal turned and looked at Bréon, and spoke softly,

"Without more trade there will be no more Feasts."

"There will be Feasts every day whilst I am Chieftain!" Bréon laughed. The newcomer did not.

"And what will you Sacrifice?"

"If we slaughter the herds, what will we farm in the Summer?" called Fintan impatiently and, as if given their cue, a chorus of harried protest filled the hall. Bréon moved passed the one called Tubal placing a hand on his shoulder, calling out,

"Bran! Bran!" and then gesturing towards the Doctor and Tegan, "My friends," he said, taking the Doctor's arm as he stood and leading him towards the doorway, with Tegan close behind. "I am sorry. I did not invite you in to suffer a meeting of the Town Council... Here is Bran, he will take care of you for the moment. He will show you my Village. I will be finished here shortly –" A man had appeared at the doorway, the same man in fact who had waved his spear at Tegan and the Doctor back on the causeway. He was weaponless now but greeted them both with the same wide eyed, drop-jawed expression of startled respect he had shown before. Bréon said to him, "Take care of them, Bran. They are our guests," and they found themselves escorted outside the roundhouse, walking and blinking into the bright light of day.

As Bran led them away from the chorus of quarrelling voices in the hall behind, Tegan leaned into the Doctor and muttered urgently,

"Did that man back there say something about a Sacrifice?"

The Doctor scratched his head,

"You know, Tegan, I rather think he did."

---

"How many people do you think this has killed?" asked Adric idly inspecting the dagger he had found in the marsh. Mahl looked over briefly,

"None," he grunted.

Adric glanced at the boy before examining the object again. It was leaf-shaped and thin. There were fine dotted lines inscribed a centimetre or so within the edge of the blade, and four thick rivets joining it to the handle. The metal was dark but for at the edges and around the handle where it was a deep yellow, with a pale powdery patch of green spreading out and along towards the tip.

Adric made some experimental slashing movements in the air, then declared,

"I should think this has been used in a battle..." He stabbed at belly height, "I bet someone was killed in the marsh with this."

He looked towards Mahl who was crouching over a small, hand-gouged pit in the soil.

"Perhaps they were murdered!" he called out.

Mahl looked at him darkly,

"I thought you said you were hungry?"

Adric looked down at the small chunk of dry old bread that lay next to him on the mossy stone. He prodded at it idly with his dagger and shrugged.

They were out of the marsh now, in a shallow basin-shaped clearing beneath a canopy of trees. Rust coloured leaves crackled in the wind over their heads and occasionally fluttered to the moss covered ground where Mahl had made a small shelter from branches and bracken. Apart from this however, and the fireplace where he was crouching now, there was little evidence to show that someone had made their home here.

Adric stood and wandered over to Mahl.

"What are you doing?"

The fireplace contained a small pile of charcoal and powdery ash. It seemed to be entirely extinguished but Mahl was crouching over it with a handful of straw as fine as hair which he had carefully selected from around the edge of the clearing, and an expression of wary anticipation which suggested it could burst spontaneously into flames at any moment.

Adric watched as the boy reached in carefully and picked a larger piece of wood from the debris, black but dappled with white ash. He pressed the straw onto it, cradling the two combined things like an offering and tenderly, as though they were a small animal, a dead bird, nestling in his palms. He raised his hands to his face and, pouting, blew softly on them. He stopped. Then he blew again, this time harder, his breath making a rushing noise loudly in the clearing.

Adric frowned and watched as Mahl sucked in air again and blew into his hands and for a moment nothing appeared to be happening and Adric, staring at the strangely crouching figure with bemusement was tempted to say something about fetching some matches when suddenly, just at that moment, a puff of white smoke billowed around Mahl's grasp. It spread in a thick milky swirl through the sticks and the straw and between the cage of his fingers and escaped up into the air. Mahl blew rapidly into the straw now, gently bringing his hands down into the pit where he lay the bundle carefully like a new born creature. Then he set about plucking up some of the finer pieces of twig and bark that were strewn about the fireplace and placed them onto the tinder. The smoke had thinned to a greyish but more vigourous ribbon and there was a noise now from the hearth, a smacking and crunching sound that grew in intensity as Mahl lay increasingly larger sticks onto the pile. Then suddenly there was flame, almost invisible in the daylight, but at its root, in amongst the straw and the new twigs, within a shifting watery space, a vivid orange glow.

Mahl stood. He stretched his back where he had been crouching. He looked over to Adric,

"Bring that bowl and the water jug," and gestured towards his shelter. Adric fetched the objects and Mahl pulled a small packet of rough cloth from within his tunic and emptied a handful of largish red berries from it into the bowl. He filled the bowl with water and placed the pot onto the now lively fire. He sat down.

Adric watched him for a moment, then sat back down on his boulder.

"Tea," he said despondently, "You should meet the Doctor, you'd get on."

"Who is this Doctor? Is he a relative?"

"No. But he is like..." Adric gave it a second thought. He looked at Mahl, "No. He's not a relative."

"And who is Nyssa?"

"Oh, she's just a Princess from a not very significant planet in the Dee-five-seven-six quadrant."

Mahl met this with the same unblinking indifference he had greeted all of Adric's revelations.

"Is she betrothed?" he asked after a moment. Adric frowned,

"Betrothed?"

"Is she promised to someone in marriage?"

Adric frowned again, then realised,

"Ah! That's an Earth pair-bonding ceremony! We don't have that where I come from."

"Do you and she not come from the same place?" Mahl asked. Adric shrugged,

"No. I said, I came from E-space. Nyssa comes from Traken... I don't know if she is betrothed." He was sitting hunched up on the boulder making vague stabs at the stone with his blade. "We don't have Marriage where I come from."

Mahl watched him push the knife into a crack in the stone and drag it along with a soft scraping sound.

"You don't have ghosts, either," he said and if Adric had been looking he would have seen some malice in the gaze which followed the scraping blade.

"We picked her up on her home-world before her family were killed," said Adric continuing, "and Tegan we picked up near... Barnet, I think. It can get quite confusing sometimes. The Doctor and I travel around quite a lot." He hesitated, then added softly, "We used to."

He looked up and saw that Mahl was leaning over the pot of water which was faintly steaming now, testing the brew with his finger tip. He produced a smaller clay vessel from somewhere inside his tunic and dipped it full. He sipped, then drank deeply, smacking his lips when he'd finished.

Mahl dipped the smaller pot again and offered it towards Adric,

"Here, drink. It's good."

Adric took the vessel and sniffed tentatively at its contents. He glanced at Mahl who was watching him intently. Adric pulled the sleeve of his shirt around his fingers and wiped the brim of the cup clean. He drank. It was warm and sweet with a tart aftertaste. He reached for the hunk of bread, then thought better of it.

"Is this all you've got to eat?" he asked. Mahl shrugged lightly,

"Until I go back to the village."

Adric frowned,

"But I thought you'd run away from the village?"

"Until I run out of bread..." Mahl grinned then lay back, his hands clasped behind his head,

"When will _you_ go back?" he called looking up.

Adric stabbed idly at the stone,

"Never, now," he said sullenly, "There's nothing for me in the TARDIS now."

"Won't they miss you? The Doctor and Nyssa and Tegan?"

"Doubt it," muttered Adric, "I don't think they've got much time for someone like me on the TARDIS any more."

"Someone like you?"

Adric nodded,

"I'm a genius," he replied matter-of-factly. He shrugged, "Well, a Mathematical genius, anyway. My Physics isn't too bad either. But I don't think anybody in the TARDIS cares about Mathematics anymore. Not even the Doctor. Nyssa used to show some interest but she's a Biologist really, and Tegan's just too silly to understand and all she cares about is her make-up and her bubble baths anyway... she's not all that brilliant at anything. It surprises me that the Doctor keeps her around, actually. But he seems to like her company. And now he sides with them all the time it's becoming very difficult to hold a proper conversation with anybody about anything remotely interesting..."

"This Biologist which Nyssa is?" called Mahl from where he lay, "What is it?"

Adric looked at him, then thought.

"It's the study of the Biological make-up of things –" He hesitated, glancing down at the dagger in his hand and the small earthenware bowl beside him, and then over towards Mahl and his smock and his ragged spikey hair and his mud smeared face. "Everything living is made up of biological parts, like, like a machine."

"A machine?" said Mahl and sat up, crossing his legs and leaning forwards on his knees, staring at Adric with deep interest.

Adric hesitated,

"Yes, something that performs work. Like, like that bow – it transforms one type of energy into another. That's all machines do, really. And our bodies are like machines, in fact all bodies are like machines. And that's what Biologists are interested in. Only, Nyssa is particularly interested in Bio-Electrical engineering. That's where you build biological structures, or machines, you make them out of the raw materials."

Mahl sat staring at the fire for a moment. He muttered privately,

"It changes one thing into another..." then he nodded and glanced up, "She is a Magician then, like Tubal? He burns the stone and turns it into a sword. I have seen him do it. He made this also," Mahl plucked at the broach pinned to his chest, "He told me there are different types of gold which he must have for different types of Magic – gold which he makes hard in water, like the dagger! And soft gold which he needs now for the sacrificing. That is a dark gold, he said, like the sun setting." Mahl nodded again, considering the ramifications of his sudden insight. He looked up at Adric,

"And you are a Mathemagician?"

Adric frowned heavily,

"A Mathema_tician_. It's not Magic. It's Science – it's Mathematics."

"What is Mathematics?" Mahl shrugged.

Adric hesitated, checking to see whether Mahl was teasing him. But his companion seemed genuinely ignorant. Adric waved his hand vaguely,

"Mathematics! Number theory. The study of numbers!"

"Numbers?" Mahl was frowning too now, and Adric felt a sudden angry frustration,

"Numbers! Yes?" he showed some fingers, "One, two, three, four, you know?..."

"Reckoning?" Mahl asked. He gestured with his hand, the fingers clenched but for the upright index, "One... Two," he lowered the index, "Three," he pinched his thumb and forefinger, the remaining digits extended, "Four," he showed all of his fingers, his thumb tucked into his palm. Adric stared, then realising what he'd seen, nodded quickly and sighed, partially relieved,

"Yes! Counting!" then shook his head suddenly, "No! Not _just_ counting –"

But Mahl was nodding appreciatively,

"Medhal of the House at the Gate counts all the time," he mused, "He counts his sheep. He told me he has," Mahl hesitated thoughtfully then made a spasmodic movement with his right and then his left hand, "He has this many sheep when he last counted them..."

Mahl smiled. Adric watched him and was suddenly aware that a gulf of understanding existed between them which was unlike any he was used to facing when he spoke to, for instance, Nyssa or Tegan. With them it was simply a case of limiting the terms of reference he used to within their own very narrow range of understanding. With Mahl, he realised, the terms each had at their disposal did not share a common factor, did not seem even to belong to the same Set.

He hesitated, considering the tools he had available, then ventured,

"How many sheep does Medhal have?"

Mahl shrugged and shuffled the complex series of symbols between his hands.

"_This_ many."

Adric nodded,

"Then, what would Medhal have if you were to take away that many of his sheep?"

Mahl frowned.

"Say he lost them," explained Adric, "Or, they were... eaten?"

Mahl shrugged then patiently answered,

"He would not have any sheep." Casually, he splayed the fingers of both hands in a gesture of dissipation, like demonstrating the drifting explosions of two fireworks,

Adric nodded,

"And if Medhal had..." he cast around him, his eyes alighting on the log where he sat, "If Medhal had the same number of drinking cups that he had sheep. How many drinking cups would he have?"

Mahl stared for a moment as if he was now wondering whether Adric was teasing him. He made the same signs he had made before.

"It is the same number," he muttered cautiously. Adric nodded eagerly,

"Yes. And if you took away all of Medhal's drinking cups, how many then would he have?"

Mahl hesitated. Then said, stating the blatant,

"He would have no drinking cups."

Adric grinned and raised his hands, splaying them as Mahl had done in his casual gesture to show the disappearance of Medhal's sheep.

"Then he would have _this_ many."

"But that is not... there are _no_ drinking cups," said Mahl. Adric nodded,

"And there are no sheep. So there are the same number of sheep as there are drinking cups."

"But there are none. You cannot count what is not there."

Adric sat up, his chest bulging slightly,

"_I _can," he said and smiled.

Mahl stared at him for a moment, his doubt evident in his frown but beneath the suspicious brows, in the shadowed but brightly glinting eyes, Adric could discern the glimmer of an awareness of something which _could_ be comprehended...

The moment drew on, and then Mahl opened his mouth to speak. And then there was a scream.

It was close by, from the direction of the lake and the yellow reeds there, a high scream, tremulous and feminine at first but becoming something fiercer, strident and guttural. It stopped – enough time to catch its breath – then started again.

Mahl was on his feet amidst a plume of dry leaves, snatching his bow and a willowy arrow, standing tall to try and glimpse the origin of the sound. Adric nearly fell on his face trying to clamber off his log and he had just hopped over to where Mahl stood when the boy darted away, ducking under the branches of their camp ground canopy, bounding out of the clearing and into the bushes.

Adric went after him, wading into the reeds, up a small incline and then down a sudden step of turf into a clear muddy area where Mahl was standing now, staring passed him.

Adric spun and saw a dark rounded shape and beyond that a slight, aubergine-coloured figure capped by a mop of brown hair.

"Nyssa!" he hissed crossly. Nyssa looked at him, her big eyes huge. She was shaking where she stood, her hands at her mouth, about to scream again, and she looked away from Adric, down towards the thing that crouched between them. It was like a small dark and furry car. A mass of grey-skinned muscle and thick bristled hair was poised on implausibly slender legs that were tiptoeing now balletically as the thing turned to face the new arrivals.

Its head was huge, a wedge of spines and skin tapering from the solid block of its shoulders towards a slender snout in a cone that ended abruptly in a flat disc of wet flesh. Above the nose two small black-centred eyes shone menacingly and from below them, from out of each corner of its mouth, two great tusks spiralled upwards and back towards the head like the baroque handlebars of some monstrous motorcycle.

The creature stopped its pirouette and faced Adric squarely. It was big. Chest height at the tip of its ragged mane. And it stood poised like something being held back under immense strain. It moved its head suddenly, the arcing tusks swaying alarmingly, and took a step backwards towards Nyssa, who whimpered slightly. Behind him, Adric heard Mahl speaking in a hushed, calm tone,

"Don't move suddenly. She will attack if she thinks you mean her harm."

Nyssa glanced passed Adric then back towards the beast.

"Now move slowly away," came the voice from behind Adric's ear, "Do not turn your back, but move slowly and quietly until I tell you to run..."

Nyssa glanced up again, and hesitated. Then carefully she lowered her hands to her sides, touching and feeling the tall grasses behind her. She took a cautious step to the side.

The creature made a snuffling noise, tiptoeing back another step, its black eyes darting in their bright whites towards Adric and then at Mahl who spoke again,

"Adric, when I say, I want you to run to the Willow tree. When I say."

The creature was making a soft whinnying sound now, its pointed forelimbs dancing slightly, as if the tension under which it's whole body seemed to be placed was reaching some irresistible point of release.

Adric hesitated. He was sweating. His heart was thumping in his throat so that his whole head throbbed.

He realised suddenly that he had his dagger in his hand, the handle small and hard in the great sweaty palm. It felt cold. He gripped it harder and raised it slightly.

"No, Adric." hissed Mahl from behind, but Adric was fixated on the creature's head, on a point between the eyes. He stepped forwards, raising the blade, and then a lot of things happened at once.

There was a high scream – Nyssa's – that was overcome quickly by the whining screech of the animal itself as it leapt forwards, springing in one bound on its pin-thin legs up to Adric, thrashing its huge head and the great handlebar tusks from side to side.

Adric heard the sound but didn't see anything until it was too late. A tusk caught his leg and he felt the ground lurch from under him and then spin so that he was looking down at a bright sky for an instant before hitting the dirt with a wind-stealing thud and a bright point of pain in his left foot. He looked up, dazed, and saw the face of the monster loom up at him and then turn to its left and away.

The animal leapt towards a shrieking Nyssa but then staggered, its forelegs buckling, and ploughed headlong into the earth sending a spray of mud forwards at the girl's feet. It was still squealing, but now there was a hollow gurgling in the sound that grew as the squealing dwindled, and became a kind of wet popping belch. It's back legs folded and it slumped heavily to the floor, kicking out in sudden violent spasms as though it were trying to crawl through the dirt towards Nyssa who was staring now with growing abhorrence.

It seemed to reach towards her, stretching out lengthways, the back legs shuddering, the muscles of it's flanks and shoulders quivering in waves, and then the great pyramidical bulk of its body toppled to one side and it lay in the dirt, the ribcage heaving slowly, a great line of stark pink thumb-sized teats visible along her exposed belly.

She was making drawn-out hollow sounds now, like someone blowing into a metal drain pipe. There was a growing patch of dark blood that spread in her shaggy mane and out onto the ground around her from a wound in her throat where, Adric could see, the thin feathered shaft of an arrow protruded. The swell and fall of the ribs became less pronounced. The hollow sounds became a thin rasping whisper. The raised back leg flexed slightly, circling vaguely in the air and shivered then became still. The breathing stopped and there were no more sounds.

Adric pulled himself up onto his elbow grimacing as pain shot up from his left ankle. Mahl came up and kneeled beside him, placing his bow on the ground by his side. Adric looked at the bow and then over towards the motionless animal.

"The ankle is broken," said Mahl moving Adric's leg, making the boy wince. He looked up, "Nyssa, we will need reeds, an armful."

The girl looked at him, evidently surprised at the address, but then turned and seeing herself surrounded by reeds started pulling them up in handfuls. Mahl turned back towards Adric,

"You will need to return to your blue box with your friends," he muttered gravely. Adric frowned,

"I'll be all right," he said sulkily. He could see his foot but it felt oddly separated below the ankle. There was no pain but a numbness that was unsettling.

Nyssa made her way across the clearing, taking a wide route around the unmoving animal, and deposited a bundle of long green stems at Mahl's side. Then Adric watched as Mahl took a reed and threaded it under and around his ankle.

"I'll be all right, I said!" cried Adric suddenly realising what was being done. Mahl withdrew his hand, startled and angry, as Adric, ignoring the acutely painful sense of a limb rejoined, pulled himself away on his elbows out of reach.

Mahl stared, frowning hard. Then he stood and turned and walked over to where the dead animal lay. Nyssa moved to Adric's side, concerned and reproachful,

"He only wants to support the joint, Adric. He's trying to help you. Don't be silly." But Adric was ignoring her, watching instead the other boy who was crouching now alongside the carcass and touching it with his hand.

Mahl seemed to be saying something, softly, words beneath his breath, his head bowed and still, his eyes closed. Addressing his speech, it seemed, towards the dead animal itself!

Adric sat himself up on his outstretched arms, staring in disbelief, brushing away Nyssa's hand as she tried to tie another reed about his damaged limb. He called out,

"What are you doing?"

Mahl did not respond but reached to the ground by his knee and scooped up a handful of damp soil. He tipped the soil onto the animal's snout and kept his hand there for a moment before raising both palms upwards and, lifting his face to the sky with his eyes closed, spoke quietly again.

After a moment, he lowered his head, pausing in silence. Then he stood, looking towards Adric where he lay,

"The dead must be so honoured," he said solemnly, "That their spirits stay at rest."

Adric stared hard at him,

"It's not true. There's no such thing as its spirit," he muttered and added, "It's just an animal that tried to attack me. Now it's dead."

Mahl glared over at him, then looked about the clearing and went over to a patch of yellowing reeds near to where Nyssa had originally been standing. With a sudden movement, he reached down and lifted something from out of the vegetation. A thin squeal of alarm broke the quiet as Mahl held up a small grey and pinkish creature, dangling by its leg. It squirmed and wriggled, trying to break free. Mahl said over the screeching,

"She was also a Mother protecting her litter." He tossed the tiny animal unceremoniously in Adric's direction. It hit the soft ground and rolled a little and then scrambled to its short pointy legs and, after a pause to get its bearings and a shake of its little head, scuttled over to the hulk of its mother's dead body and began to suckle.

Mahl went over and picked up his bow then turned and began to walk away.

"Wait!" Adric reached out, wincing as some pain came back. Mahl stopped, turned. "I – " Adric hesitated, seeing Nyssa now looking sternly down at him. "I need help to get back to the camp," he raised a hand, fingers splayed, almost a gesture of friendship; nearly a plea for forgiveness.

Nyssa clucked and, after a moment of inaction, Mahl came forward and they both knelt beside Adric and began strapping the boy's foot. Mahl muttered,

"You may be able to count what is not there, Starboy, but you hunt like a fool."

"Then you'd better teach me how to hunt," said Adric. He grinned, then yelled out as Nyssa tied the last of the reed bindings tight.

"Sorry, did that hurt?" she said simply, her big eyes flashing dangerously. Adric pouted at her,

"What are you doing here, anyway? Were you spying on us?" She shrugged the accusation away,

"Keeping an eye on you, for the Doctor, I'd say."

Between them, Nyssa and Mahl lifted Adric to his feet.

"Well, we don't need you," said Adric stubbornly, "Ow!"

"Sorry, was that your foot? And I say you _do_ need me. So that is that. Come along, you'll have to hop..."

They made their way unsteadily back to the camping ground, Mahl glancing all the while towards Nyssa with an odd admiring glaze on his expression.

---

Being shown around the village by Bran was somewhat akin to being led around the school grounds by a newly appointed Head Boy: what he lacked in any degree of real authority, he more than made up for in his pompous enthusiasm for the duty.

More than once Tegan caught sight of a house's occupants raise their eyes to one another sceptically as their host bustled them in and out with a string of hasty introductions. More than once they left people giggling in their wake as Bran waved them on like some kind of visiting royalty.

Nevertheless, his association with Bréon obviously guaranteed him a certain degree of respect and his devotion to the Chieftain was practically incandescent.

He took them passed the open field with the great fire place, where now groups of men were stacking fresh logs and branches, and onwards to each of the roundhouses in turn, hailing passers-by on route with a sort of swaggering familiarity that seemed to be catching almost everyone he addressed completely by surprise.

As they hurried on, Tegan managed to catch the Doctor's eye,

"Doctor, _Sacrifice_?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows,

"Yes, indeed... Now, Bran –"

But Bran was showing them off to the occupants of another homestead,

"Wives of Amheirgin!" he announced to a group of three women and a gaggle of kids seated at the porch of one of the smaller houses, "Bréon, son of Brionath, Chieftain of our village has asked me personally to show these foreigners his people and possessions –"

Each woman knelt at a large smooth grey boulder, shaped like a shallow sink, filled with a chalky white powder and a debris of gold and grey papery shreds. They each held in the down-turned palms of their hands a large stone which they moved in a small circle so that they were accompanied at all times by a growling, rasping noise like the grind of a distant motorway – and every now and then they'd take a handful of brown beads from a pile at their sides, and throw it into the well of the larger stone.

There was a sudden distracting movement at the door and a woman older than the others, her greying hair braided into two waist-length ropes, joined the group. She had a hand raised, palm towards them,

"Yes, yes, we know the chieftain of our village and who his father was, Bran, son of Brendon keeper of swine, puppy of Bréon,"" she muttered. There was laughter from the other women and one of the smaller children – smocked and urchin-like – rushed over and clasped her skirt. She went on, smoothing the clinging child's hair with a calloused hand, "What is it you want? If you"ve come for more jewellery, then I have no more to give you, Bran, son of Brendon, master of the swill..." More giggles. Bran pouted and bristled somewhat,

"I am on the Chieftain's business – It's my duty –"

At this point, and to stop the rising snorts of derision from the other women, the Doctor stepped forward, hat in one hand, the other extended,

"Good afternoon, may I introduce myself: I am the Doctor, and this is my friend, Tegan..."

The woman looked at the hand as if it was something dragged across the threshold by one of the dogs, and the Doctor withdrew it with an embarrassed hum. The woman spoke,

"Well, and greetings to you, _the Doctor_, and to your friend," she peered around him and Tegan made a smile. "You're welcome in our village. No doubt you'll be feasting with us tonight?"

"Well, I..." began the Doctor but Bran interrupted him, swelling visibly,

"He will be our guest of honour! And his Priestess Tegan will make the prayers."

"I'm not..." began Tegan wearily but lapsed into silence in the light of Bran's effusive smile.

"A Priestess, eh?" the woman nodded, "We'll make good use of _you_ then..." She went on, "Yes, these are times of plenty, to be sure, and we have enough for all the feasting – even though the men folk sit around all day in drink and talk, while we gather the wheat in – yes, yes!" she raised a palm, fending off an objection by Bran, and gestured behind her, "The Ancestors will provide all, I know. Yet they will not provide our bread, young Bran, oh no!... humph!" She seemed to calm, or rather become resigned. She smiled (a little menace in this one) "You're welcome _the Doctor_, and his Priestess Tegan," she had moved near to Tegan by now and reached up, cradling Tegan's cheek in her fingers and smiling into her gaze. Her fingertips were hard like driftwood. "A word of warning from an old woman, Priestess – keep a hand on your jewellery –"

"Cessair!" cautioned Bran crossly and she nodded, taking her hand from Tegan's cheek, waving him away. She pointed a long finger towards him,

"Ah, but they'll take it from you, mark me, young pup, if it's precious and the colour of sunset, oh yes... the pin my Mother gave me – _phut_! – thrown to the Ancestors... hmph! I tell you, them ghosts, they must feast well on all our offerings!"

The other women were laughing again, and Bran was rigid with indignation, but the woman had said all she had to say and turned back towards the doorway.

Bran made a decision, and led them away with beckoning hands,

"I will show you the rest of the village," he muttered, frowning and pouting a little. Tegan lingered, watching the women with the grinding stones and the brown grains – wheat! she had realised with a sudden snap: they were grinding flour – and behind them now, a dozen kids had gathered in a group as though about to sing some sort of choral welcome for visiting dignitaries.

She waved, wiggling her fingers and mouthed a "bye bye" and saw some of them flinch at the movement, before relaxing into smiles and waving back.

"That was Cessair," said Bran as they walked, "She is first wife of Fintan, the fisherman."

"Was he at the Chieftain's meeting?" asked Tegan keenly. Bran nodded crossly,

"She is a difficult woman," he went on, nearly to himself, "She has no respect for the Chieftain, or for his officials. I have spoken to her about it before. And I have mentioned it to Bréon"

"Oh yes?" asked Tegan, "What did he say?" Bran swelled with pride,

"He told me once that if everyone in the village was as trustworthy as me, he would spend more time with his dogs."

"Would, or could?" Tegan frowned.

"He is very fond of dogs," said Bran a little distantly, "The woman is... intolerable," he muttered with a shudder. Tegan grinned,

"I quite liked her: she reminds me of my Mum."

The Doctor stared his 'not the time nor the place' stare at her, and mused,

"Yes, she didn't seem happy about the Feast, tonight. What was that about her jewellery, Bran? She seemed to be saying it had been stolen from her?"

"And what about _Sacrifices_?" said Tegan being helpful, "We want to know _who_ is going to be sacrificed, "'cos it's _not_ going to be me, mate –"

"Oh, the sacrifices are of the jewellery," said the Doctor casually, "Or at least, some sort of precious metal object. A dagger, perhaps, Bran?"

"We must show the Ancestors the proper respect," Bran muttered. The Doctor nodded,

"Yes, indeed, Bran... although you seem to be showing them an _awful lot_ of respect at the moment... How many Feasts in their honour have you had in the past few months?"

Bran shrugged vaguely,

"We have celebrated every night since the burial of Brionath, Father of Bréon, Chieftain of the village."

"And..." the Doctor was probing gently, "How long ago was that?"

Bran thought briefly,

"Two moons," he replied, his tone of voice suggesting that he hadn't thought of it in those terms until now.

"Two _months_?!" shrieked Tegan, high stepping through the long grass, "Crikey! That's more like a Mardis Gras than a wake!"

"Tegan!"

"Well, it is!"

"You will have to excuse my companion, Bran, she has a habit of engaging the mouth before activating the brain!"

"It is often the way with Priests," said Bran nodding, "Bréon has told me that Ladra –" He stopped. The Doctor, very casually, said,

"Yes?" but it was obvious Bran had said more than he had intended. He smiled politely at them and beckoned them onwards,

"Here, here is my home," he said, gesturing.

They had walked to the far end of the village; the low grass-clad bank which marked, it seemed, the outer boundary was close here, and set up against it was a small, turf covered building the condition and scale of which instantly made Tegan think the word _shack_.

"Very... er, compact," she said nodding as Bran stood proudly in the pooling expanse of mud at the mouth of the doorway. Improbably, his grin appeared to actually widen as he hurried around to the side of the hovel, beckoning them with both hands.

"And look, over here," he announced, gesturing towards something out of sight. They moved to follow his indication.

There was a small fenced-off muddy pen around the back of Bran's home, in which a rather scrawny looking, mostly-white goat, tied to a stake stuck in the dirt, stood chewing languidly at yellow straws, and beside this, and obviously the centre of Bran's rapt attention, was a low, Spartan wooden and metal wagon tilted forwards on its forks. It reminded Tegan of a largish go-cart, the sort of ill-advised and ramshackle thing that her brothers used to build and race suicidally down the slope of Expedition Hill when they were kids.

But the Doctor seemed more impressed.

"You drive this for the Chieftain?" He leaned towards it, hands behind his back, beaming intently. Bran swelled visibly,

"It is my honour."

"Great!" muttered Tegan, swivelling her eyes upwards, "He's only the boss' chauffeur!"

"A very important role, Tegan – we can't all occupy the lofty position of High Priestess, you know." The Doctor raised his eyebrows at her then turned back towards the cart, "Radially spoked wheels with free-spinning axles! Some sort of sprung suspension using these laterally compressed wooden slats! And all pulled by this little fellow, am I right?"

Bran nodded excitedly as the Doctor patted the goat's scrawny neck. The animal chewed at its lunch unfazed.

"Fascinating!" marvelled the Doctor again, then turning, "It's a chariot, Tegan. Forerunner of the Royal carriage, or... or the Presidential Limousine. But much, _much_ more impressive..."

"I am not all that impressed," mumbled Tegan frowning slightly. The Doctor narrowed his eyes,

"Well, that's because you're not looking at it in context. Imagine the impact on the villagers when Bran steps aboard this, this..."

"Contraption?"

"Stately vehicle," said the Doctor pointedly. "Look at the detailing here, carved into these wooden side panels – these stars here, those clouds, that stylised figure... it's rich with significance!" He fell into a delighted silence.

"But it doesn't seem very..." Tegan shrugged vaguely, "_advanced_, Doctor. It's just an old cart, not a hyperspace galactic _whatsit_..."

The Doctor straightened and looked at her,

"Technological advance is a relative measure, Tegan – it all depends upon where you're starting from... If you travelled far enough back along the line of technological advances that culminated in the TARDIS, eventually you'd come to someone holding a flaming branch... and every step along the journey was, in it's own way, remarkable. Aren't I right, Bran?"

Bran smiled the smile of a man desperately trying and not at all managing to keep up. The Doctor shrugged quickly,

"Besides which, you're missing the point. It's a symbolic object, like the causeway in the marsh. It is much more than merely function or form... In Norse mythology, Thor the god of Thunder rode through the heavens in a chariot, sending lightning into the clouds from the tip of Mjollnir, his mighty war hammer!" The Doctor grinned, apparently happy with the verbal image. Tegan scowled at him,

"Was Thor's chariot pulled by a goat?"

"By two goats, actually," said the Doctor stiffly. Tegan shrugged,

"Then I reckon the lightning must've made all the difference."

"The Druidic sun-god was said to travel across the skies in a chariot! The image appears again and again throughout your history. These archetypes are lodged deep in the human psyche! What you don't seem to appreciate, Tegan, is that the very image of the Chieftain astride this vehicle would invoke ideas in the minds of these people that will become a deep-rooted part of your racial memory. "

Tegan scowled,

"You don't think they'd just laugh at some guy being pulled along in a cart by a goat, then?"

But the Doctor was too caught up in his own enthusiasm to pay her any more attention. She turned with her back towards the two men and watched the rest of the village as it went about its business.

They had walked around the back of the houses here, and she could see the rise of the low hill which the village crested, and to her right the low earthwork that skirted everything and, following that around, the top edge of a slope that dipped out of sight, and then in the distance the dark river with the muddy kicked-up bank and the sparse outcrop of trees where the mysterious isolated hut was.

She noticed movement away to her left and saw a couple of men walking back from the direction of the Chieftain's house, one stooping to pick up a child that had run to greet him, and realised that the village meeting must have ended, and over to the right she saw, where the mysterious hut was, a lone figure making its way down the slope towards the river. She recognised it as the man who had barged in on them back at the Chieftain's meeting, his bald head quite visible, his leather smock a distinct patch of colour. He made his way alone into the trees and out of sight.

She watched where he had gone for a moment or two, uncertain as to why she found the man so creepy but confident that she did, then noticed movement further up from the spot where she was concentrating, in the leafless canopy of the trees above. A gathering of birds, large black shapes – crows, she thought – were sitting in the grey mesh of the branches like bizarre dark fruits, a dozen or more, listlessly shifting at their perches with slow shrugs of their broad wings. As she watched, two more flew down to join them, their arrival greeted with a flurry of feathers and distant cawing.

"What makes them _gang up_ like that?" Tegan muttered privately.

It was an eerie sight but she had that sort of thing before: Back home, when she was a kid, at the back of the school playground was a line of ancient Red Gums that stood like spindly white skeletons blocking out the yard of a derelict canning factory, and flocks of Gallahs would gather in the treetops towards the end of the day filling the high canopies with a creepy wavering sound like some supernatural choir. The start of the chorus had caught her out once, when she was very young and staying over at a friend's house and daring to trespass beyond the wire and the "Danger: Keep Out" signs, and the noise had chased them home to their beds and a long night filled with dreams of vengeful ghosts...

Apparently, she later learned as a grown up, the birds appeared at the same time every evening, and then rose in clouds of shimmering pink and white into the twilight sky. Regular as a clock. Now that she was an adult it seemed merely strange and spectacular, something even to make an effort to go and witness, but back then it had seemed like the Apocalypse.

Suddenly, she felt something tugging at her skirt and looked down.

"Hey!" She stepped away from the goat who had wandered over and was already attempting to take another bite at the hem of her uniform.

"He's showing you that he likes you!" the Doctor beamed as Bran dragged the animal off of her. Tegan examined the damage with a frown,

"Yeah, well, I'm not so sure I like _him_ all that much. Are we going to go now, Doctor?"

"What, and miss the party?" the Doctor looked away towards the village with a grin, eyes gleaming.

"But what about the sacrifices everyone keeps on about?" Tegan protested.

"Purely symbolic, Tegan. And all really just a convenient excuse for a jolly good knees-up."

Tegan considered their plight,

"All right, but if we're going to stay, when are we going to fetch the others?"

The Doctor stared at her blankly.

"Adric and Nyssa!" she gasped, "They're still back at the TARDIS, remember?"

The Doctor glanced away thoughtfully, then smiled, recollection dawning,

"Oh yes! Well, it won't take you more than five minutes to nip back to the TARDIS and get them, will it?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"But, Doctor..."

"Yes?"

"What about the _Lands of the Dead_?"

The Doctor sighed greatly,

"They're just –"

" –purely symbolic, yeah, I know... What about wild animals and monsters?"

"Tegan, this is Earth, fifteenth century B.C. There are no monsters."

"Yeah, well you tell that to the _Terry's Chocolate Leptils_," she paused, correcting herself punctiliously, "The Terr-a-leptils... I'm _not_ going out there on my own."

"I will come with you, Priestess." Bran had stepped forward, slightly bent over, presenting a perfect picture of humble servitude only partially undermined by the presence of a goat trying to chew away the hem of his tunic. He shooed it off and bowed a little lower. "The marsh can be dangerous to the unwary, but I know the way."

Tegan looked at the Doctor. The Doctor looked at Tegan. He smiled,

"Good, that's sorted then. Hurry back!"

She huffed, resigned.

"And what are you going to do in the meantime?"

The Doctor looked ahead, chewing his bottom lip thoughtfully,

"I am going to enjoy the peace and quiet of this technological desert. And I rather fancy another cup of Rosehip tea!"

He set off at a march.

Tegan watched the Doctor go with a scowl and, as her Dad had once described it, a "pout like a Dingo's arsehole". Behind her, Bran went into his shack and came out with his spear, and the goat wandered off to chew on a patch of dandelions.

She glanced at Bran who stood waiting for her with a certain eager anxiety, and then looked away over towards the subtle hill that rose on the horizon.

She wished now that she had said something to the Doctor about the figure she had seen. She knew he probably would have dismissed it as unimportant: just an onlooker viewed askance at a distance; and she knew, deep down, that this was probably all it had been. But it would have been comforting to hear him tell her.

She glanced warily at Bran.

"Bran, are there monsters around here?" she said, cautious in case the words, when she heard them, sounded silly.

Bran looked at her blankly.

"Any men with the head, say, of a d-dog?"

Bran shrugged and replied, vaguely,

"Medhal has many dogs – he uses them to herd the sheep." He smiled helpfully.

Tegan smiled back in embarrassment.

"Yeah, of course! Dog-headed men! I mean, what was I thinking of? – Come on, then!"

They walked up towards the main circle of houses until Tegan caught sight of the village gates with their fluttering decorations, and they made a straight line across the turf towards it.

The gates were as strange as they had been when Tegan had first seen them, though now they were not so incomprehensible, no more than a rather burly arrangement of timbers and cross beams lashed together with fraying furry ropes.

The strangeness, she realised, had come from the feathers and coloured beads, pennants of painted bark and strips of fluffy sheepskin that fluttered in the breeze from the structure and bequeathed to it an odd, restless, shimmering agitation, and which, now they could be understood for what they were, seemed a little tawdry, a little forlorn – like the remnants of a Birthday Party after everyone had gone home; or Christmas decorations in the New year.

However, it wasn't until Tegan had passed under the not-all-that-high crossbeam and had walked a few steps onto the slowly descending slope of cropped grass beyond, that the full significance of the gates, and the inadequate-seeming earthwork which ran away from either side of it, fully struck her.

She looked back and saw the gate and the turf wall and the grey and green points of the houses beyond, and felt that she had done more than merely walk a few feet over springy turf. She had the sense of coming out of a confined space under a lowering sky and becoming vulnerable. Back there was security and warmth and the comfort of home. Out here was the wilderness. She had crossed a boundary. It was like leaving the TARDIS.

Bran standing next to her seemed to have responded to the same sense of exposure; holding his spear a little tighter, its toffee-coloured tip wavering lower in front of him. He was staring out at the trees and the hills, as if they harboured invisible terrors.

He looked to her and she nodded,

"All right, then. Lead the way!"

They set off down the hill towards the faint beginnings of the path which had led them from the marsh.

"Who is the guy in the leather dress, Bran?" ventured Tegan after a moment or two of silence, "He came in after all of the others."

Bran thought, then nodded,

"Tubal? Ah, Tubal! He is a great man, a great Magician."

"Magician? You mean like card tricks?" Tegan frowned.

"He is a Magician of the earth and of stones," said Bran keenly, "of gold and of fire, of jewellery and ornament – he is not a spiritual man like you or like Ladra..." he stopped. Tegan looked over to him,

"And who is Ladra?"

Bran looked away, flustered,

"He is... we do not speak of him... he is _dead_."

"Another ghost, eh?" muttered Tegan. It was obvious that Bran would say no more. She changed tack, "What makes this Tubal so great then?"

Bran smiled, his enthusiasm resurgent,

"He has brought much honour to our village with what he has made. He has brought much honour to Bréon and to Bréon's great father..." he paused, the pride radiant in his broad smile. "He is like his father was, in the time of my childhood, when our village was renowned throughout the world for the ornaments that were made here –" he waved his spear towards Tegan who flinched in surprise. "Tubal made this!" He nodded and smiled appreciatively at the weapon whilst they walked, then continued in a quieter tone, "He practised much magic for us, at one time..."

Tegan looked away and shrugged,

"Well, he gives me the creeps," she muttered, really to herself. She glanced over to Bran and found that he was staring at her with an expression which, considering his natural deference, bordered on a fierce rebuke. He looked away hurriedly,

"He is exhausted," he said, "It has been hard for him since... since the old chief died... he has had much work to do..."

Tegan watched him, the corner of her mouth pinching a little with regret. She muttered,

"I'm sorry, OK? It's just that he's..."

_Leave it!_ she thought and bit her lip. She looked away towards the low hill that had risen beside the path they were following, and was brought up sharp by the sight of the grassy burial mound showing clearly against the meringue of clouds on the horizon.

"Bran, who is that for?"

Bran followed her gaze, and when he replied his voice was soft with reverence,

"It is where the bones of our Chieftains lie."

Tegan glanced warily at him, then back towards the hill. She clenched a fist and relaxed it, and then strode forwards.

"Where are you going?" Bran's voice sounded urgently behind her.

"It's all right," Tegan assured him walking on, "I just want to take a quick look."

"You cannot, Priestess. It is forbidden!"

"It's Ok. I won't go too near."

She glanced back and saw Bran standing, teetering at the brink of the pathway's edge, spear lowered and clutched firmly in his white fists, his eyes wide and worried. She carried on, up the gentle slope, its grass closely cropped, clumps of droppings scattered here and there, muttering grimly to herself,

"Well, the sheep aren't forbidden."

She kept her eyes on the mound and swung her hands as she strode with a determination to appear casual, and the mound grew nearer but stayed vacant. Behind her, Bran's pleas had ceased and she was aware suddenly, from the corner of her fixed gaze, that a figure was walking at her side.

She quickly checked and saw that it was Bran, wary and hanging back slightly.

He said breathlessly,

"It is forbidden, but since you are a Priestess!"

Tegan grimaced crossly, but Bran went on,

"If Ladra were to see us..."

"I thought you said Ladra was dead?" muttered Tegan. Bran started a reply, then hung his head,

"He is!"

"His _ghost_ then?"

"No! He is not a ghost, he is... he's just... dead."

"Ah!" Tegan nodded, "There's dead, and there's _dead_, eh?"

"He..." Bran chose his words carefully, "There was a great disagreement... He... he tried to kill the Chieftain. For that he should have lost his life. He would have if the old chief were still in the flesh. He was banished from the village. It was hard for Bréon, Ladra was like a second Father to him... Bréon has lost two Fathers in one Summer, it has been very hard for him, and now Mahl has gone too..." He frowned and said crossly, "People should be more _loyal_."

They stopped. They had reached the base of the mound, a low circular hillock several feet across, rising to the height of Tegan's hip, and swathed in long grass that had yellowed in patches. It was empty, and Tegan was surprised to find herself a little disappointed.

What had she expected to see? _Footprints?_ Or the mark of something more sinister?...

"No monsters," she muttered sternly. Bran made a questioning noise but remained with his spear raised, his head bowed and turned away, as if the sight of the hill were painful to him.

Tegan looked and felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him, and a twinge of guilt that she had led him here on no more serious an impulse than her own idle curiosity. She sighed,

"Well, anyway, it's a nice view from up here."

She stepped away from the mound, looking out towards the village that lay below them, the main group of roundhouses clearly visible with their totems and fireplaces and the villagers moving between them. She could see the dark tarmac-grey path of the river snaking out to her right becoming lost in the woodland and, further around, the grass and trees becoming scrubby, thinned out and scrappy as patches of clear reflected sky, like the scattered shards of a broken mirror, showed where the marsh began and then became the lake.

She spoke as she surveyed the scene,

"Bran, why have you buried..." She became aware that she ought to be more sensitive, "Why do the Chieftains _lie_ here?"

Bran was still suffering where he stood, his grip on the spear so tense that its tip was vibrating in the air. He muttered through clenched teeth,

"So that they may watch over and protect us," then adding in a hiss of suppressed anxiety, "Priestess! We _must_ go from here, it is _sacred_ ground!"

Tegan nodded ruefully. She smiled at Bran and they made their way down the meadowed slope and onto the path once more.

Behind them, unnoticed by them, perching in the sparse branches of a clump of trees that hung over the pathway, were a dozen or so large black birds. Another flew to the group and joined it, gliding on broad-fingered wings and settling on its perch with a shrug. It turned its head to one side, and seemed to watch the departing duo.


	6. Chapter 5

5.

Adric leaned on the railing of the observation deck and looked down. He was high up, a hundred metres or so, on the least-exposed side of the Starliner where a row of craggy hills skirted the hulk. Below him the forest canopy spread out from the vertiginous grey mottled cliff-face of the hull and filled the valley, moving in the wind like a vivid green sea.

He was watching the movement, the eddy of buffeted branches, the leaves changing colour in waves as the breeze brushed across them like a hand stroking velvet. He was fascinated.

Once, some time ago, he had come up here and seen the whirling patterns of the forest canopy and had experienced, for the first time that he was truly aware, a sense of terror in the face of the unknowable. He had seen the intricate arabesques of movement down there and had realised suddenly, as if in a revelation– an explosive burst of insight in his brain– that even he, an _Elite_, and with his special grasp of the fundamentals of the Universe, could _not know_ certain things. It had rushed up at him and enveloped him, made him stagger back and catch his breath like falling into the river.

He had cried tears of fear. Like a child in the darkness. He had cried for his loneliness and his lack of a Mother and a Father, and for the burden of his special genius, and the terror of not knowing, and had run back to the Mathematics laboratory and buried himself in a mundane and pacifying diversion he had developed at the time: calculating the value of π from the nine-billionth decimal place onwards. He had been seven years old.

Nowadays, he came here with an increasingly comforting sense that although he could not know certain things, he could know _why_ they were unknowable. He had grown as a Mathematician, acquiring a framework of mathematical insight which had bound the question, contained it, made it possible to examine and draw meaning from it... in the way that (he realised now with a rueful smile) indicated his passing from childhood into adulthood.

And so the sea-forest had ceased to terrify him, but instead enthralled him with its complexity and chaos - drawing him in with a tenderness like an embrace and he found himself up here at the railing more often now than in the cool blueish gloom of the study cabins below decks. It was a sanctuary.

He felt a push from behind.

"_Whoa! Careful, I've got you!"_

A force on his shoulders thrust him forwards onto the railing, teetering at the brink, then pulled him sharply back. The voice behind him was mocking and familiar,

"Good thing I was here to save you!"

Adric turned, muttering as he shrugged off the hands that held him,

"Varsh, that wasn't funny," and looked up into his brother's smiling face. "What are you doing here?"

Varsh smiled his white smile. He seemed taller than when Adric had last seen him, and broader, altogether bigger, and was wearing the sleeveless smock and sash of a Riverfruit picker. His shoulders and arms and face were nut brown from working in the sunshine, and the sweat glistened like oil over his bulging muscles.

Varsh's smile wavered,

"Well now, I hadn't realised this level was reserved for Elites only..."

Adric frowned crossly,

"I'm not-" he began, "It's not reserved...". But Varsh was already smiling again,

"Relax, little brother- I'm just kidding." He pulled a large oval-shaped object from the knapsack slung across his shoulder, "Here, have a Riverfruit. Don't eat it all at once..."

Adric took the object reluctantly,

"What are you doing –?" But Varsh was already pushing something else into his hand, a paper envelope. He looked back along the deck as he did so,

"Hush little bro, just hide that somewhere, and don't say a word!"

As he said this a figure walked out of the hull at the far end of the deck, and called out,

"Varsh! I- oh!"

It was a girl. She stopped momentarily when she saw Adric, but then made her way towards them, her long blonde hair flowing about her glowing in the sunlight like a sheaf of optic fibres, her face pale, skin like plastic, her neck slender and thin, the tunic she wore scooped low at the neckline so that her throat and shoulders were bare.

"Keara!" Varsh, smiling, moved between the girl and Adric, "What are you doing up here?"

"You know what I'm doing up here!" She sounded angry, the smooth lines of her precise features spoiled by a frown and the crease of her pursed lips.

Varsh went on smiling, chuckling softly, the sound airy and, Adric knew, false,

"Hey, let me introduce you to my brother. You haven't met him yet, have you? Adric, this is Keara. Keara: Adric."

She reached them and stood, arms folded across her breasts, glaring at Varsh, then glancing towards Adric, her expression softening a little as she offered,

"Hello, Adric."

Adric stuttered something incomprehensible.

"Adric's an Elite!" Adric felt his brother's arm, heavy and strong, clasp his shoulder.

The girl's tight lips ticked into the briefest smile,

"I know." She looked at Adric with a blue crystalline gaze, "Everybody knows who your brother is, Varsh."

Varsh leaned into Adric,

"There you are, little brother. You're famous!"

"Varsh!" The girl spoke sternly, but Adric noticed that the angles of her face had softened a little, the eyebrows arching, the lips fuller, more rounded. "_Who_ is Reanne?"

Adric watched his brother frown and search about him, muttering,

"Reanne? Reanne? Um..."

"She works on your Team down at the River," Keara prompted testily.

"Oh, _Reanne_! Oh yeah..." The white smile. "Oh, she's just some girl. Isn't her Dad one of the technicians on the Service ducts, level three...?"

"What's this I hear-" Keara began but Varsh quietened her with an outstretched hand,

"Wait, Keara! Don't say anything, wait-" He was rummaging in his rucksack and pulled out a smallish sized Riverfruit. "Here, take this." He handed it to her.

"I don't want-"

"Take it, please, go on..."

Keara paused in the midst of a short-tempered response, aware of some significance in the gift that Varsh was emphasising with his grin and widened gaze. She took it,

"I don't want a Ri..."

Varsh had moved towards her, cupped her hands in his, bending his face to the fruit and closer to her own,

"Hey! Wait a moment – what's this? Here, look!"

A frown of annoyance flared on her face but then faded as she looked down,

"There's nothing..." She saw something and frowned again, the edges of her mouth curling slightly upwards as Varsh moved his hands so that a segment of the fruit, ready-sliced, came away. He discarded the slice and looked into the Riverfruit,

"How strange!" He reached into the centre and seemed to be scooping out the heap of dark seeds that was amassed there. A wiry thread rose with his fingers, at the end of it a slender bar of white. "Looks like a necklace! Don't normally find those growing like this." He shook his head, disbelieving, "This is some weird fruit!"

"Varsh!" She was smiling now, her bottom lip pushed into the upper, pursed to show disapproval but betrayed by the pinched corners of her mouth and her cheeks that were filling with colour, and Adric could see that she was breathing deep long breaths through widened nostrils.

"Look, it says something on it-" Varsh handled the object and read, "_Keara _– Wow!" he glanced up, grinning, "How strange is that?!"

She laughed – a musical sound, Adric thought – and took the necklace in her slender fingers,

"Is it plastic?"

"Oh yes," said Varsh, casual now, the charade over, "Only the best. And none of your reconstituted muck, either. Here! Let me put it on you."

He moved around behind her, reaching around her throat, holding the thread, which, Adric realised, must have been nylon, and fastening it beneath her hair at the back.

Keara was positively glowing now, holding the pendant under her nose, examining it closely with a wide grin,

"Where did you get it?"

"A friend in the Technical Lab. He owed me." Varsh's fingers were resting at the nape of her neck, where the skin seemed thinner, translucent, the tendons taut and prominent as she turned her head to the side and upwards, finding Adric's brother's lips with her own. Her hand moved up to touch Varsh's caress, letting the pendant fall and hang and move against the shiny bones of her collar, nestling in the shallow well of skin above the soft curving flesh of her breast that swelled and sank with each deep breath.

Adric realised that he was staring and looked away. Then he heard a voice call out,

"Ah! Adric, you're here!" and as Keara and Varsh hurriedly moved apart (her fingers lingering on his hand), Adric saw between them, at the far end of the deck, a tall robed figure advancing rapidly. He stepped forwards to greet it,

"Decider Draith!", unable to disguise the alarm in his voice.

The Decider looked displeased,

"What are you doing up here, Adric? Educator Slake has been looking for you! Who are these people?"

Adric faltered, hanging his head, watching the decider's boots tread into view,

"This... my brother, Sir. My brother, and his..."

"I am Varsh, and this is Keara, Decider Draith. It is a pleasure to speak to you in person..."

Adric looked up. The Decider was standing before him now and his brother had moved forward and was standing tall with his head raised and staring directly at the elder who seemed, now that he had reached them, shorter than Adric had thought of him before, shorter, at least, than his brother who had his hand out, the brown of his arm stark against the pale grey of the Decider's robes.

Draith looked at the outstretched hand with curiosity. He looked into Varsh's face. He turned towards Keara who bobbed where she stood and lowered her head,

"You are Login, aren't you? Chief Engineer Login's daughter?" The voice was stern in the way that Adric was familiar with: indomitable.

Varsh said,

"Yes, she is. Her name is Keara."

The Decider glanced at Adric's brother briefly, his gaze taking in the boy's long lank hair, his naked shoulders, the cheap cloth of his working clothes. He looked at Keara again,

"Does your Father know that you are here?"

The girl made a quiet noise.

"She's on a break from the harvest, Decider Draith. She has my permission to be up here."

Varsh smiled. The Decider glared at him. He spoke,

"Yes, Varsh. You are a Team Leader on one of the Riverfruit crews, aren't you? I have heard a lot about you. Purser Kaith tells me that you are a talented organiser of the workforce."

Varsh hesitated, half-smiling, seemingly lost for words. The Decider went on,

"Of course, we will need people of your talents in the trying times to come."

His thin lips formed a smile and Varsh seemed to find his voice suddenly,

"Oh, I see! You mean at the Mistfall?" He scoffed contemptuously as he spoke the term. The Decider's smile persisted,

"Ah, yes, Kaith has also told me of your views on the matter."

It was common knowledge now, even in the rarified environment of the Education Deck amongst the Elites, that Adric's brother believed that the Mistfall – when the marshes rose up and the giants walked the earth – was merely a myth, a lie concocted by the authorities to keep order amongst the Working Grades. Varsh had never been one to keep his opinions to himself, where they belonged, and murmurs of outrage and disdain at his pronouncements had passed like a shudder through the Upper Decks and the Learning Labs where Adric sat apart from his fellow students, his head buried in a textbook, the heat of shame burning his temples...

Varsh spoke angrily,

"You don't seem altogether shocked by the news! Maybe that's because you know it's true: Mistfall _is_ a myth!"

"Varsh!" said Adric in a whisper. Keara's small mouth was an oval. Varsh looked at them smiling,

"He knows it's true."

The Decider spoke,

"My young boy, you would not believe such fallacies if you had all the facts at your disposal."

Varsh laughed,

"What facts? There's never been any facts! Just _your_ word, and the stories that old women tell to frighten the grandchildren."

"There is information in the System Files-"

"_What_ information?"

"These are not matters for your concern, young man."

"Why not? If there is proof in the System Files that the Mistfall is real, then why can't I see it? Why must it be for your eyes only? Why can't I read the truth?"

"Because you're not an Elite, Varsh!" Adric yelled suddenly, reaching out and grasping his brother's arm. He was breathless, giddy, his face flushed, "You're just a Norm. You just pick Riverfruit down in the valley!"

Varsh stared at him and in his eyes something flared momentarily and then went out and he looked down to where Adric was touching his arm. Adric pulled his hand away. He began to say something– he began to say "I'm sorry"– but felt a large gnarled hand clasp his shoulder firmly.

Decider Draith was beside him, tall again and irresistible,

"Come along, Adric. You must not allow yourself to be distracted from your studies. The Community is going to depend upon your skills in the future. You must not let it down."

He felt himself moving with the big man, off along the deck and away from the bright sky and the keen rush of wind and the scents of vegetation and the musk of his brother and the sweet perfume that the girl wore, and into the sterile gloom of the Starship hull once more.

He glanced back before passing through the hatchway, wanting to say his farewell, and saw the two figures silhouetted against the starkness of the daylight. They were looking at each other, nose to nose, Varsh lifting his hand to cradle the girl's chin and speaking words to her that Adric could not hear. He turned and followed the old man inside.

A minute or more later, when they reached the Mathematics lab, Decider Draith turned to him, looking down with his gaunt boney face earnestly,

"You are going to have to be careful about who you chose to associate with, Adric," he said, his voice soft and kindly. "Remember, with the privilege of being an Elite comes a great responsibility towards the whole Community. They are your first allegiance now, Adric. They are your Family. No one single person has a claim on your affections, or on the benefits that your great good gift may bring us..." he nodded and smiled, the wrinkles about his eyes and mouth like a fine web of cracks across a painted surface. "Your destiny is to do great things for the citizens of the Starship, it is time you faced up to that future and left all that is passed behind."

Adric watched the Decider leave between the rows of brightly glowing video screens and out through the far hatch where students moved in chattering ranks. He felt confused. He wasn't sure what he felt. He felt anger, deep and subtle and not at the old man or the dreary confines of these classrooms but at what lay behind in the light and the fresh air, in the sounds of the birds and the gentle laughter and the touch of a hand. Not anger; something more private.

Suddenly, he remembered the envelope that his brother had given to him out on the observation deck, and searched inside his tunic where it had been hidden. There was an object inside. He tore the paper and took the object out. It was a necklace, a white plastic tag strung on a hair-fine thread of nylon, and on the tag a name: "Reanne".


	7. Chapter 6

6.

"Adric! Open the door! I know you're in there! Open it now!"

Tegan stamped her foot sending a spray of cold dirty water up her tights. She stepped onto drier ground. "You weasel," she muttered glancing darkly towards the blue door. She looked down, "This is not good."

The level of the lake had risen, or the TARDIS had sunk a little, and the surface was now lapping a few inches above the bottom of the door frame. She took a few careful steps forward, water covering her shoes, and slammed a palm against the battered blue painted wood,

"Nyssa! Can you hear me?!"

"Your friends are not inside?" said Bran from high up on the platform behind Tegan. She turned and looked up at him,

"Nyssa's probably in her laboratory, with the intercom switched off, and Adric's probably just being his usual pig-headed self and ignoring us." She turned and made a noise with her tongue and a rude gesture with her fingers towards the surveillance camera (which she had always presumed was hidden in the light on top of the TARDIS, though she couldn't say why...), "Little weasel," she added, turning away and splashing over to the causeway.

"I could break open the door," Bran began keenly demonstrating with his spear, "If you wished, Priestess."

"Believe me, you couldn't. Give us a hand, will ya?"

Bran took her upstretched hand and pulled her onto the walkway. He stared at the police box,

"It is protected. By spells?"

"Mmm. You could say that."

Bran nodded, impressed,

"You have very powerful magic, Priestess."

Tegan scowled at him. She looked away, along the causeway.

"Look, Bran... don't go on about it." She turned to him suddenly, "Where _does_ this lead to?"Bran stared passed her,

"Into the Land of Ghosts. To the Island of the Dead." He looked at her suddenly alarmed, "It is not permitted for _anyone_ but..." he stuttered, "It is not allowed for us to go there. Not even you, Priestess. Ladra was the only one who could walk the whole of the causeway... to the end of this world."

"The end of the _world_?" Tegan glanced at him warily, and turned back, "The Doctor said something about being on the edge of things... I wonder if that's what he meant: on the edge of the living world?"

She stared out towards the reed beds and the dark sheer plane of water beyond that seemed momentarily desolate and hard, like a bed of slate. Above it the sky was stark and bright, and then a flurry of dark birds, like a handful of scattered seeds moved across it, whirling and falling and disappearing into the horizon. She heard the isolated croak of a crow somewhere behind her, and then Bran's voice:

"The Doctor is a wise man. I do not understand it, myself. But I believe it, because Ladra says it is so."

Tegan turned to him, raising an elegant eyebrow,

"I thought this Ladra was an attempted murderer?"

Bran looked away. He shook his head,

"It is true... but he is... _was_ a great man."

Tegan frowned,

"Why did he try to kill the Chieftain?"

Bran hesitated, momentarily shocked, it seemed, by the question. He replied slowly,

"There was a great argument. Bréon and he... they were close, like Uncle and Nephew, but after the old Chieftain's death, Ladra became jealous –"

"_Jealous?_ Sorry... go on."

"Ladra resented the great Feasts that were being made in honour of the old Chieftain. He said they were... unseemly. He said that the old man did not deserve so much honour, that the Ghosts do not demand so much reverence. Tubal –"

"Tubal? The Magician? He's a _Blacksmith_! Isn't he?" Tegan laughed suddenly at the realisation, "He makes Bronze! That's what all those things were on his belt. His metal working tools!" She laughed, then saw Bran's face, "Sorry, go on."

"Tubal said that Ladra was jealous of Bréon's love for the old man. That the Feasts _were_ a proper way to show respect for the death of so great a warrior and leader, and that they should continue." Bran shook his head," There was a terrible argument. That night Ladra went to the Chieftain's house. He killed three of Bréon's hounds and then fled from the village."

"That's _horrible_!" declared Tegan instinctively.

"It was worse than that," muttered Bran, "When we went to Ladra's house, we found he had stolen the offering from that day's Feast..."

"What offering?"

"A neck band given by the wife of Medhal. The Wild One took it from the River where it had been sacrificed-"

"The _Wild One?_"

Bran nodded,

"Ladra was the Wild One."

Tegan nodded her understanding,

"Wild!..." she muttered without thinking.

Bran continued,

"There were offerings from many days Feasting in the house. Ladra had taken them all from the water... It was a terrible thing... He had betrayed the Ancestors. Tubal cursed his house and pulled the thatch from its roof and then burned it and then cast ash upon the threshold... It was a terrible day."

Tegan pondered briefly how stealing a necklace could ever be considered more terrible than the killing of three dogs but, in the face of Bran's evident horror at the notion, decided not to contest the matter. She looked again at the TARDIS standing now ankle-deep in water, and had a sudden alarming thought,

"Bran, does the water in this lake rise with the tide?"

"It does. It will rise by another hand or so before falling before nightfall. You can see the mark of the tide on that bank of reeds there." Bran pointed. The lusher, slimy band of green at the base of the pale and papery stems was obvious.

Tegan gauged the potential level against the door of the TARDIS. She hummed thoughtfully,

"Maybe, that's why Adric hasn't opened the doors." She gestured towards the light on the TARDIS, speaking as though her volume had been turned down, "I think I understand, I will go and get the Doctor. Wait there! We'll be right back!" She turned to Bran, "Come on! We've got to get back to the Doctor!"

She started off back along the causeway, halting and turning when Bran failed to follow.

"Have you any idea what could happen if the TARDIS' doors opened now and we couldn't get them shut?" she gestured towards the blue box.

Bran surveyed the scene before him,

"The... Tardis... would flood with water from the Lake. I see..." He frowned, "Would it be bad if the Tardis were to flood with water?"

Tegan raised an eyebrow,

"Not for the TARDIS, maybe, but I'm not so sure about your lake..." She started to stride away, then stopped, staring out towards the reeds. Bran walked up beside her,

"Priestess?"

"I saw something move over there."

The feathery heads of the grasses were shifting slightly, swaying towards stillness whilst she watched as though somebody or something had walked through them. It could have been the breeze.

Bran stepped carefully forwards, his spear raised. They stared at the gently rippling reed bank. Suddenly, a crow called, catching Tegan by surprise. She swore,

"Come on, let's go!" and began to walk the causeway again.

It was odd: They were high up. Above everything. The reed beds were below them and they could see it all laid out like a plan but, instead of becoming more comprehensible from this viewpoint, like the surface of the lake it had suddenly become a concrete plane, impenetrable, with an unknown depth. Tegan had the growing sense that something was moving down there, out of sight.

She increased her pace, Bran scuttling to keep up and searching the surround with his expert gaze. She was suddenly glad he was there.

"Can you see anything?"

"Nothing, Priestess," he replied and was surprisingly stern.

"Maybe it was the wind." She didn't slow her pace.

There was a fluttering, snapping noise behind and she turned, nearly stumbling, to see a large dark shape launch itself in a flurry into the air where it extended wings and became a bird, gliding to the branch of a nearby bush.

"Bloody crows!"

She kept moving. The causeway ran on ahead, dead straight, the reeds rising gradually on both sides so that, fifty metres away, they formed a corridor and Tegan suddenly thought that if anybody was stalking them - chasing them - down there in the undergrowth, they'd soon be in a position to reach out and make a grab at them.

"Fancy a run, Bran?" she muttered through hurried breaths. "Race you to the end!"

She kicked into a sprint, Bran keeping up beside her, the only sound their shallow gasps and the click of her bloody-stupid heels against the wooden slats. The reeds rose on either side, nodding inwards, light and darkness flickering in the depths between the stems. There was a movement nearby, a gust of wind, bending the reeds and sending a wave of sound hissing up behind and then passed and on ahead of them.

Then, suddenly, the reeds fell away. The walkway met the shaggy slope of a rising bank and ended.

Tegan stumbled forwards, looked up and in an instant caught sight of something that sent a thrill of apprehension through her like an electric shock.

She bent over, leaning forwards on her knees, catching her breath, then stood again and looked up once more towards the low grassy hill that rose against the horizon. It was empty, but she would have sworn she had seen, and could still see like an afterglow imprinted by a flash of panic on her inner eye, the tall standing shape with the fluttering outline, the elongated neck, and the pointed ears.

She became aware that Bran was standing beside her, his breathing short but not nearly as laboured as her own. She gulped a few mouthfuls of air and tried to regain her composure.

"Well!" she sighed, standing hands on hips, laughing a little.

The bank was bare and silent, emerald and golden where drifts of decaying leaves lay thickly on the sheep-shorn turf. She turned,

"That was fun!" and saw Bran who was smiling, a little self-consciously, his spear lowered in front of him, and saw beyond on either side the verdant banks of reeds and then the lake and the sky and then something came up out of the ground from her left and swept passed her, taking Bran with it.

She screamed. Bran vanished over the edge of the walkway and out of sight and where he had stood something grey and shapeless rose up, its furry shuddering mass reforming, extending two arms at either side, and a long neck and slender wedge-eared head whose gaping mouth was lined with jagged teeth.

Tegan hesitated, silent suddenly, the daze of panic lifting as she realised she was staring into the mouth of a dead and stuffed animal – a fox, its rigid gape quite unnatural and, this close up, faintly ridiculous. The face of a man stared out from below it, dark tanned and grossly hairy, his beard a matted whitening bush that seemed to swallow up the rest of his features, all except for his eyes that were bright and sparkling like sapphires.

Tegan said,

"You're Ladra, aren't you?"

The bright eyes blinked and narrowed, glinting in a shadow of suspicion. Then the man moved towards her, reaching out, the movement amplified into a frenetic lunge by his jacket of rust and cream-coloured foxes' tails.

Tegan froze in anticipation, wincing as the outstretched hand neared her face. She was shaking inside but determined not to let it show. She wouldn't scream again. That scream before had been a stupid, instinctive response and she wouldn't do that again whilst her brain was in gear. _Stupid_! _Pathetic_! He wasn't armed. He was old. His feet were bare, caked in mud and there was mud on his arms, too.

She could smell his body odour as he moved towards her: pungent and sweet. She could hear his breathing: deepening and lengthening. She could feel his fingers slide down onto her cheek, leaving a cold slick trail of mud, and then reaching back towards her ear.

She screamed again.

And then the whole bloody sky fell on him!

It came down like a storm cloud, forcing him onto his knees, his hands flailing above his head, the tails of his coat madly fluttering as all about the darkness seemed to dart and swirl and gradually resolve itself into a spiralling column of large black birds! Crows! Shrieking and rasping as repeatedly, one after the other, they launched themselves onto the cowering figure, pecking and scratching.

Tegan had fallen backwards onto her bum onto the turf and now she scuttled crab-like away from the man and the feathered fury that had engulfed him, gawping in horror as the birds rained down their attacks relentlessly. She felt a grip on her arm hauling her to her feet, and looked and saw that Bran was beside her, pulling her away with him. She resisted for a moment, absorbed by the sight of the belligerent flock and the sound of its shrieking, and then came to her senses, turned and ran.

They made it to the top of the slope before staggering to a halt and looking back.

The flock had dispersed, shreds of it skittering over the reed beds, wheeling skywards here and there, as if searching the landscape below. The figure of Ladra the Wild One was nowhere to be seen.

Bran stepped forwards, turning towards Tegan and staring in awe,

"You summoned the birds from out of the sky to protect you!" Tegan turned to him and blinked. Bran lowered his head, stepping back and bending his knees slightly in a bow. He gasped, "Truly, Tegan follower of the great god Air Australia: you are a most powerful Priestess!"


	8. Chapter 7

7.

Adric had seen the girl several times during the next few weeks, always whilst keeping a discreet distance from the Riverfruit beds where she worked, or watching from the shadows in the high balconies of the great Midship galley, where the whole Community filed through in their grades at the beginning of each day. She seemed to move in her own sunlight, and with a grace and poise not possessed by ordinary people, like an alien creature, like a bird, and time seemed to shift its boundaries when she passed, so that, more than once, Adric had rushed back late for the start of his next lesson in the Learning Labs under the gloomy, despairing gaze of Educator Slake.

At break times and at the evening meals he would see her with his brother, nose to nose, conversing in smiles and whispers, his brother's hands touching her chin and neck and hair, hers feeling for the necklace that she wore, and Adric would squeeze the tangle of thin plastic that he kept tucked away in his jacket pocket, with its treacherous name, and ponder the opportunity for hurt and destruction that it presented to him.

It was an opportunity he never took. The Growing Season had worn on and then the Mists had come and, as Decider Draith had declared – his last and greatest declaration as it turned out – with the Mists the giants, all absolutely true as stated in the System Files, and in amongst all the chaos and blood and death that followed the Doctor had turned up, and life had started anew for Adric. A fresh, clean start. Full of hope and prospects. And no ghosts.

---

Adric watched as Mahl walked across the clearing and presented Nyssa with a reed platter piled with food.

The slender carcass of a piglet hung spit-roasting over the fire – easier to skin than the Sow, Mahl had pointed out. He'd performed the task with a flake of stone, meticulously broken from a hard, bruise-black lump that had been stowed in the camping ground. It was as sharp as a surgical blade and, inevitably, Adric cut his finger whilst examining it.

The meat was soon sweltering, spitting fatty juices into the hissing flames, the smell carried in the white smoke unctuous and savoury, making Adric's mouth fill and his stomach growl.

Only Nyssa had seemed to find the impromptu barbecue unappealing, and regarded the plate of succulent creamy-white meat before her with a look of faint revulsion.

"Are you not hungry, Princess Nyssa?" asked Mahl, concerned. She smiled her politest smile.

"I'm sorry, Mahl, it's just..."

"If she doesn't want it, I'll eat it," Adric called out, his mouth already crammed with pork.

"It's not that I don't appreciate it, Mahl, it's just that..." Nyssa hesitated, "Where I come from the meat of ungulate animals is considered... unclean."

"What's an _ungulate_ animal?" called Adric, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"An animal with hooves," declared Nyssa promptly.

"Well, why didn't you _say_ that?" Adric sullenly shovelled another fist-full of meat between his teeth. Mahl stood holding the platter, awkward and uncertain. Nyssa helpfully picked up the bowl of rosehip tea that sat beside her on the log, and lifted it to her lips,

"This will be fine for me, Mahl. Thank you. And I won't mind if you don't call me 'Princess'."

Mahl went back to his own place by the fire.

"I can get bread if you are hungry, from the village," he said as he sat down, "My sister has been meeting me in secret at the edge of the marsh – she brings me food and beer when I need it. If you wished it I could meet with her now?"

"You never said you could get bread for _me_!" spluttered Adric spitting meat everywhere. Mahl shrugged carelessly. Nyssa shook her head quickly,

"Not on my account, Mahl, please. I'm quite content, honestly." She took a sip of her tea as if to demonstrate.

Adric huffed and went over to the spitted piglet, prising off more strips of the buttery flesh with his knife. He glanced darkly towards Nyssa, muttering,

"If you're not going to eat then why are you still here?" and sat back down again.

Nyssa said,

"Pardon, Adric?" and Adric said around a mouthful of meat,

"Nothing."

Mahl was looking at him with his head cocked to one side.

"Your ankle, Starboy: It is well again?"

Adric stuck his leg out and examined the joint as if the injury had slipped his mind.

"Yes. It's fine now." He waggled his foot experimentally.

"But, it was broken. I'm sure."

"It's fine."

"Adric is from Alzarius, Mahl," explained Nyssa cheerfully, "The Alzarian physiology has a very rapid rate of tissue regeneration. It heals much quicker than you or I might."

"I _can_ talk for myself, you know!" snapped Adric frowning sternly at the girl.

Nyssa stared at him in surprise, then turned away, muttering,

"I was only trying to explain that you are different from us."

Mahl spoke,

"But, you are different, too, Nyssa. You are not like other girls that I have known."

Nyssa raised her eyes to look at him. He went on,

"Your skin is white and clear, like the shell of a duck's egg, your hair is thick and hangs in curls like the winter coat of a yew and you... smell differently. You smell of a meadow at mid-day in the Summer..." He fell silent, then reached down and picked up a twig from near his foot and threw it on the fire. Nyssa lowered her gaze hurriedly to the bowl of tea in her lap.

"She doesn't shave her legs, though," called Adric carelessly. He chewed at some crackling as the other two stared at him, each, it seemed, as unsure as the other of the significance of this fact.

"Why did you say that?" Nyssa asked, frowning.

Adric shrugged,

"It's true, that's all. Why don't you, Nyssa? Tegan does..." He picked some of the chewier gristle from his teeth and flicked it at the fire, saying to Mahl, "She's not _perfect_, you know."

"I never said I was," replied Nyssa, "Maybe I will go back to the TARDIS." She moved to stand but Mahl started,

"No, don't go, Nyssa!" He hesitated, smiled, "Tell me some more about yourself, about your family."

Nyssa sat poised in her decision for a moment, whilst Mahl smiled nervously at her and Adric chewed noisily at his food. Then she relaxed.

"There's not all that much to tell," she began, "I was born into the Traken Union, a small civilisation on a peaceful planet. My Mother died when I was young. My Father..." she stopped, swallowing some words that had almost escaped her. She continued,

"I studied at the Academy, specialising in Biogenetics and Chemistry. I suppose I would still be there if things hadn't... changed."

"Do you have brothers, or sisters?" asked Mahl pouring some more of the sweet smelling brew into her bowl.

"No. I was an only child." She smiled quickly at him. "It was just me and my Father. I was happy and, I suppose," she looked into the fire thoughtfully, "I suppose, if anything, my life was just a little too contented. That's what I think sometimes, anyway."

Mahl frowned,

"What happened, Nyssa?"

Nyssa glanced at him, her dark eyes waxing with emotion.

"The rest of the Universe simply burst in on us, I suppose." Her smile flickered. "I was taught at school that the Universe abhors a vacuum. Well, I've begun to think that the Universe abhors an idyll, too. That's what my Father called Traken once: a place so peaceful it shone like a beacon in the darkness..." she shook her head clear of thoughts, and reconsidered, "There had always been the Melkur, of course, but they were like moths flying to a candle... they were evil, certainly, but I sometimes wonder if they weren't a particular type of evil... like a particular kind of bacteria, like an immunisation: whose effects were more benign than destructive. But then the Master came and everything changed."

She fell silent. The only noise was the crackling of the fire and the soft eruptions of steam that accompanied the dripping of fat from the roasting pig.

Mahl spoke,

"Did the Master, did he kill your Father?"

Nyssa glanced at him, perhaps assaying the sincerity of his question. She looked away,

"The Master took over my Father's body, and killed whatever it was that made my Father who he was. And then he destroyed everyone I knew, and the planet where they lived."

Her mouth was a small tight slot of indignant rage. She said,

"I saw him as my Father, later on, in Logopolis... It was like seeing my Father's ghost."

Suddenly Adric interrupted,

"That's ridiculous!" he snapped. "He's dead, Nyssa! That's all there is to it... He's gone forever, it happens to everyone, to every living thing. It'll happen to us one day, and when it does that will be the end of us. How can you say you saw your Father's ghost? There's no such thing as ghosts!"

Nyssa reacted crossly,

"I didn't say I had seen his ghost. I said it _seemed_ like I was seeing my Father's ghost."

"Well, that's just a silly idea," scoffed Adric, frowning.

"He _looked_ like my Father!" explained Nyssa.

"But you knew it wasn't, so it was silly to think it was a ghost."

Nyssa sighed, exasperated,

"I suppose I wanted to see my Father again as I remembered him. You must know how that feels, Adric. How you can miss someone so very much that you think you see them everywhere."

"That's silly."

"It's not silly, Adric. What about your brother?"

"What about my brother?"

"Well, you remember him. You must miss him, don't you?"

"No," Adric scowled, head down buried in his chest, pressing the point of his knife into the palm of his hand.

"I know you don't like speaking about him, but you must think about him occasionally?"

"No," said Adric. Nyssa sighed,

"Oh, Adric."

"Why should I? What's the point?"

"Because he's your brother, Adric!"

"He _was_. And now he's dead and whatever he was has gone. It doesn't exist. Like that piglet on the fire. It was alive and now it's just food for us. We don't spend all our time thinking about the piglet!"

"Adric! It's _not_ the same thing. He's your brother!"

"He _was_ my brother, and now he's just... stuff... dust, rotting stuff..."

"Adric, you don't really feel that way."

"Stop telling me how I feel!"

"It's only _normal_ to grieve for those that you've loved!"

"Be _quiet_!" Adric was on his feet suddenly, wielding the knife towards the girl who, startled, gasped and recoiled. "He's dead!" he shouted, "That's all there is to it! He's dead, and he's not coming back, not in this world or any world, not as himself or anything else! He's dead and I'm alive, and that's just the way it is! He's not a ghost! I don't believe in ghosts! There's no such thing as ghosts!"

"I have seen my Father's ghost."

It was Mahl who had spoken. Nyssa and Adric looked at him, and then at each other. Adric lowered his knife to his side.

"Where, Mahl?" asked Nyssa.

"On the Island of the Dead, at the end of the causeway in the marsh. I have seen my Father's ghost and he sang to me."


	9. Chapter 8

8.

Tegan and her companion made their way back to the village in record quick time. It wasn't until she was within sight of the grey cones of the thatched roofs, her shadow racing up the long slope towards the festooned gate ahead of her, that Tegan finally relaxed her pace a little.

She was breathless as they passed through the boundary wall, and her ankles and the soles of her feet were jarring with every step.

"One of these days," she muttered to herself, "I'm gonna get myself some plimsols."

"Priestess?"

"Oh, nothing, Bran. We need to find the Doctor quickly. Where do you think he'll be?"

Even as she asked this, she glimpsed a flash of white and cream over towards the far end of the village, in the paddock-like area that lay before the Chieftain's house. She headed towards it.

The Doctor was clearly there, standing in his shirt sleeves, his coat discarded, surrounded by a dozen or so of the village men, who seemed to be talking in a kind of loosely organised committee, only now a few of them had stopped talking and were leaning forwards, hands on knees, attentive towards one of the others who stood holding... Tegan wasn't quite sure but it looked like...

"Oh my god... what's he up to now?"

She strode through a crowd of spectating villagers, onto what was now the pitch, and headed towards the figure in white who had just turned at the end of what was going to be a longish run up. He stopped when he saw her,

"Ah, Tegan! You're back!" and smiled. Tegan did not,

"What is going on here, Doctor?" stomping passed one of the village men incongruously draped in the Doctor's long-tailed coat and wearing his white straw hat.

"Just a friendly lesson in good sportsmanship." He grinned and tossed a red leather ball from one hand to the other.

"You're teaching them _cricket_?"

The Doctor smiled again, this time a little thinly.

"I don't see why not. It seemed only fair to give them a glimpse of what will become one of their culture's finest achievements."

Tegan looked around. Several Bronze Age warriors were standing about in various states of crouching cup-handed readiness, their attention centred upon a crudely marked-out rectangle of grass where two men clad in shin pads made of bark and twigs and string stood brandishing bats fashioned from carved logs, before a wicket of three long sticks pushed into the ground.

"Doctor, this is pre-historic Britain, fifteen hundred B.C.! Not Lords, nineteen-eighty-two!"

"It's never too early to start learning the noble game, Tegan."

He smiled again and then, faced with Tegan's recalcitrant glare, stopped smiling. He hid the cricket ball discreetly behind his back, and raised an enquiring eyebrow,

"You've got mud on your face."

Tegan touched her cheek instinctively, then remembered why she had mud on her face,

"Something has happened that I can't explain," she gasped.

"I had the same problem myself when young Teesh over there got stumped out of his crease."

"_Doctor!_ I'm serious! Something's not right here. It's the birds, the Crows! We were attacked!"

Tegan explained. After she had finished, the Doctor frowned,

"Are you quite sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure! They attacked him! They came out of the sky and attacked him!"

"And they seemed to be protecting you?"

"I..."

Tegan hesitated. She was interrupted by a voice behind her,

"It is true, Doctor. Bran has told me everything. She is indeed a very powerful Priestess!"

Tegan turned and saw that a crowd had gathered behind her. Chieftain Bréon stood before practically everyone in the entire village. Bran was standing next to him, gazing at first towards her and then to his tribal leader, torn between them in his rapture.

"The birds of the sky obey her command!" Bran declared, awe-struck. Nervous glances flickered through the crowd and some of the villagers averted their gaze when Tegan looked from face to face. Others smiled and gasped in delight. Tegan sighed,

"Aw, now _listen_, Bran -" but Chieftain Bréon stepped forwards, his arms open wide.

"Priestess Tegan! This is a great thing you have done for us! The Wild One betrayed us and dishonoured my Father, now his banishment is affirmed. Let us wait no longer..." he turned her with a firm but gentle touch, propelling her through the crowd towards the great fire stack that was now crackling into flame. He cried out, "Let us Feast to the spirit of my Father!" His yell met with cheers and laughter, hands in the air and reaching out to touch Tegan reverentially on her shoulder-pads. "And to the honour of the Priestess Tegan, who came to us from the sky and who commands the birds as her own!"

There was an odd pulsating falsetto that Tegan thought at first must be more birds of some kind, but which turned out to be a choir of women standing in the ring of logs around the fireplace. And then, from out of nowhere, came a deep bass roar of noise that made Tegan jump and look around startled.

Three men stood further away near the trees each holding a long straight bronze tube to their mouths that flared from a kiss-narrow mouthpiece to a barrel-sized bell at the end. From these instruments came the startling bass note, that was startling because familiar, as known to her as the smell of smoking meat and the scent of sun-parched grass – reverberating as it did with the groaning resonance of a didgeridoo.

The Chieftain had left her, and people were milling about, smiling and talking and now, thankfully, no longer concentrating on her but moving around the fire that was erupting in deep orange flames and she suddenly felt that she wanted to speak to the Doctor, just to see a familiar face as much as anything, but couldn't find him amongst the crowd and, looking urgently around, heard a new noise start up in all the clamour that sent her back to childhood wedding receptions dressed as the chief bridesmaid, moving through forests of unfamiliar people who seemed nevertheless friendly because in some way and at some remove related, searching for her Mum or Dad and feeling for the first time the solitude of being a real grown-up: Drums! A tom-tom. Somewhere, someone was rattling a rhythm on a taught animal skin. A modern sound. A rock-and-roll sound.

She turned again, suddenly unsure of where she was, and as the crowd opened up, saw the fireplace, flaming and smoking thickly now, and then a huddle of people close to the flame who seemed to be lugging small grey sacks towards a man who had a piece of the fire in his hands – A blade, she realised! A shining copper knife! – and brought it down sharply, drawing it swiftly across the necks of the sacks which had legs, she saw, and heads and small delicate mouths that bleated above all the musical noise, and writhed and kicked and shuddered.

She turned away, feeling slightly sickened – back home the abattoir that her Father used was a hundred miles away, and their Spring-time contributions left the farm discreetly in the back of the UTE making that whole inevitable part of the farming industry a thankful mystery to her – and found herself bumping into a familiar broad chest.

"Doctor!"

"Are you all right, Tegan?" The Doctor smiled and she smiled back. "This is all very unexpected, isn't it?" She felt his hand on her arm, his arm on her back, as he led her away through the villagers towards a bench where Bréon and some other familiar-looking men sat.

"Shouldn't we get back to the TARDIS, Doctor? What about the birds?" she muttered, anxious at least not to forget the panic that had made her run all the way back here. The Doctor replied thoughtfully,

"Yes, that does seem unusual, doesn't it? Though we can't be sure that isn't natural behaviour for those birds at this point in their evolutionary history."

"Doctor!"

He gave her a shifty sideways look.

"Well, Crows are naturally very aggressive creatures in any case..."

Tegan frowned,

"You really want to stay for the feast, don't you?"

"Let's just say, I am curious to see what these celebrations are all about. And besides," he smiled quickly, "A bite to eat and a glass... um, beaker of something would be very welcome just about now."

"What about Nyssa and Adric?"

"Ah yes, well... if Bran was right then the tide will have fallen by tonight, and we should be able to return to the TARDIS then. There's no real point in leaving now, is there?"

The Doctor had led her to where the elders sat, with a view of the fire and most of the assembled. She was seated amongst them, the Doctor sitting next to her, and someone handed her a cup of something that tasted sweet with a slightly bitter finish,

"Is this beer?"

"Of a sorts," said the Doctor drinking from his own earthenware beaker, "Fermented barley most probably, with a little honey for sweetness. Very _quaffable_!"

Tegan sipped at it whilst watching the party swarm in front of them: chattering groups of women and gaggles of giggling girls, and gangs of spotty boys who shoved each other closer to the flames of the fire and then towards the girls, then scattered, snickering and embarrassed.

Suddenly, above the music and excited chatter, a crackle of loud bangs rang out, followed by squeels of surprise and then laughter. Tegan jumped, alarmed,

"What was _that_?" She leaned in to the Doctor. "It sounded like gun-fire!" There were more cracks and a plume of amber sparks shot up from the fire. "Or fireworks," she suggested.

People near the fire, mostly children, were laughing and some appeared to be throwing sticks onto the flames, then ducking away as the pistol shots sounded and a shower of sparks flew up.

"Too early for gunpowder, Tegan," muttered the Doctor, transfixed by the activity and grinning, "At least in this culture. Didn't you ever attend a bonfire when you were at home?"

"Yes, on the beach when I was a kid. We used to have Tiger prawns and baked bananas. I loved baked bananas." Tegan mused.

"Ah, well, this is a real _bone_-fire," the Doctor gestured. "A fire made of bones. It's a celebration of the dead... a reduction of the physical skeleton to something, well... insubstantial – physical substance transmuted into flames and smoke; it's full of significance."

Tegan looked on appalled.

"Are those _human_ bones?"

"Er... no, I don't think so," said the Doctor, as though he hadn't considered the possibility. "Sheep bones, I suspect. Did you know they've slaughtered their entire herd over the last two months of feasting? One of the villagers told me. He didn't seem altogether happy about it either."

"Why not?"

"In a society like this, Tegan, a healthy livestock can be all that stands between surviving the Winter and, well..."

"Becoming an Ancestor?"

"Hmm, precisely."

"But Bréon doesn't seem too worried by it," Tegan leaned forwards, glancing over towards the Chieftain who was chatting and smiling freely with Bran and, she recognised, the other man who had accompanied him at their first meeting. The Doctor followed her gaze,

"I'm afraid he's rather alone in that regard."

Tegan glanced quizzically at the Doctor, and then at the elders sitting on either side of them. It couldn't be denied, there was a certain stiffness in their manner that suggested they were not enjoying the festivities so much as enduring a duty. Not so much stiff, thought Tegan, as _rigid. _She smiled politely at the bearded man sitting on her right, then turned back to the Doctor,

"Why are they doing it then?"

The Doctor looked at her,

"Ritual, I think. Tradition. Sometimes the things we do become as important as the reasons for doing them... And besides, I have noticed that humans need very little excuse to throw a party."

There was a definite sense of excitement in the crowd, Tegan could feel it. As if the restraints and expectations of everyday communal living had been relaxed a little. As if they'd all wandered into a discreet space between the fragile complex rules of social engagement and a place where chaos ruled. She recognised the experience,

"It's like the last day of term," she suggested, watching the villagers, "Only..."

"Yes?" said the Doctor. Tegan thought, then answered,

"There's something my Team Leader at the Airline used to talk about – 'Passenger Fatigue' she called it, or 'Getting the Lock-Jaw Grin'. It's when you spend so long being friendly and helpful that you reach a point where, instead of saying 'good bye, thank you for flying with us', all you really want to say is 'Piss off my plane, I hope I never see you again'."

The Doctor looked at her. Tegan added hurriedly,

"Not me! I didn't say it!... But that's what this feels like... everybody's spent too long being nice to each other. They're sort of just going through the motions."

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, then said,

"Yes... it does seem a little jaded, doesn't it? Except –" but just as he started to say something else there was a movement in the crowd and the sound of the great trumpets being blown again. The tom-tom went quiet. Tegan looked up and saw that the villagers were turning towards the bench where she and the Doctor sat. Bréon stood,

"And now it is time for our honoured guest to speak the words of inauguration," he turned, "Priestess Tegan, who worships the great Air Australia, we await your blessing."

There was silence. Tegan gazed up into the expectant faces of the assembled. She turned to her side, looking for support from the Doctor but found, to her horror, that he had stood and was watching her now with his arms crossed and a faint smile on his lips.

Tegan swallowed. Awkwardly, she got to her feet.

"Um..." She fumbled with her sleeve, thinking feverishly. She didn't know any prayers! Not in English anyway, and she wasn't even sure what most of the Yiddish ones from her grandparents really meant, or even if they would be appropriate anyway, or even if it wouldn't have been, strictly speaking, blasphemous to use them here and now.

"I'm not..." she began and looked around at all the eager faces that were aglow in anticipation of whatever prayer or magic spell she was about to impart to them. She didn't believe in this sort of thing! It was all those awkward moments at her friend's house before dinner when her friend's Mum asked "Who wants to say grace?". It was her grandfather's sombre incomprehensible mutterings of the Kiddush at Shabbat mealtimes: all just a sort of ritualised mantra intended to bestow upon the listener a sense of comfort and well-being.

She hadn't done anything like that before!

Although, now she thought about it...

"Er," Tegan hesitated, then ventured, "On behalf of the Doctor and myself and all at... Air Australia... I'd just like to welcome you aboard this... um... _to_ this Feast. I am your Senior Air... Priestess, and I will be available throughout the duration of the flight – _meal_ should you need any assistance. May I remind you that, in the event of an emergency, you will find exits... um, back to your houses, er, here and... over there. Should we experience a loss of... party... atmosphere, the... um, band will... play more loudly. We will be serving drinks shortly and food will be available in a little while. On today's menu we have... lamb, obviously. We thank you for choosing to feast with Air Australia and on behalf of the Doctor and myself, may we wish you a pleasant journey–_uh_, Feast!" She smiled and lowered her hands, "Thank you!"

---

"The island lies at the end of the causeway," said Mahl staring into the fire. "It is called the Island of the Dead. No living man may go there – only Ladra, the Priest. There he talks with the Ancestors. He makes them offerings and they speak to him."

"What do they say?" asked Nyssa softly. She was sitting beside the boy, quietly attentive in her way that sometimes gave her the air of a Ward Sister on night duty. Adric sniggered, at her and her question, but fell silent when he realised that both Nyssa and Mahl were ignoring him. Mahl continued,

"They speak of things to come, and things that have gone before. They predict the seasons and the harvest. They foretold my brother's birth and mine. They tell when the stars will fall and when they will rise in the sky again."

"What did your father tell you?" asked Nyssa. Mahl glanced at her, perhaps trying to gauge whether the question was seriously meant or not.

"He did not speak to me in words. He sang music to me!"

"He _sang_ to you?" Adric laughed, "Why did he sing to you?"

Mahl shrugged. Nyssa said,

"It's very rude to laugh, Adric!"

Adric asked,

"What makes you sure it _was_ your father?", the sneer resonating in his tone of voice. Mahl looked up and held his gaze briefly before replying,

"It was."

"There's no such thing as ghosts," began Adric but suddenly Nyssa turned on him,

"Adric, please! I wish you'd show some respect!"

Adric stuttered the beginnings of a reply, then fell silent. Nyssa turned to Mahl,

"What was it like? Seeing your father? Tell me." She was leaning closer to the young primitive, her knees next to his, almost touching. She had her hands flat on the tops of her thighs. Her thick curly hair framed her face, the fringe low over her brow so that her eyes seemed to shine out, huge and lambent and sympathetic.

"At the Island of the Dead there is a small low entrance, like an uncovered grave, that goes below the earth into the underworld. My Father was there, seated as he used to sit at the village councils, his flesh all white as chalk but at his neck the torque that he always wore when he was alive. He was silent at first but when I spoke my name and showed myself he sang and I know that he recognised me. I stood as close to him as I am to you... yet, he seemed... distant, as if, even though I could have reached out my hand and touched him, there was a space between us that I could not have crossed were I to walk for a dozen moons. That does not seem sensible, I know, but that is how it was."

"It _does_ makes sense, Mahl," said Nyssa in an excited whisper, "I know what you mean exactly. It felt like that when I saw the Master. I knew he was not my Father, I knew that, but he seemed... at least, I thought... I felt my Father was there but at the same time... somewhere else." She paused, lost for a moment in a memory. Then she smiled at Mahl, "You must miss your father terribly."

"He was a great warrior," said Mahl straightening where he sat. He fell briefly silent, then added, "There was no distance between us when he lived. Yet he seemed less... real, then. I did not think of him when he was alive. But now... The leaves still clothe the trees and the geese are not yet on the Lake, but Winter is in my heart. It feels like it will always be so."

"Oh, Mahl," Nyssa made a soft sigh and reached out, touching the boy's arm with her fingers, leaving her hand there. "It seems that way now, I know. But, Winter will pass, believe me, and the Spring will come again."

"Things will never be the same," said Mahl.

"No," Nyssa smiled, "Things will be different."

They looked at each other. Nyssa's hand was still on Mahl's arm, feeling the muscle beneath his skin and the warmth and the pulse of his blood that seemed to course in time with her own heartbeat. They seemed, for one moment, bound together in circle of feeling and sensation that excluded the world beyond them with its coarseness and indifference; intent upon this peaceful, gentle instant and the comfort of its inexpressible sadness.

And then the moment passed. Nyssa could smell the pig on the fire. There was smoke in her eyes. She moved her hand away from Mahl's arm and sat back breathing.

"I think I would like to eat now, Mahl."

"I will fetch some bread and beer", Mahl smiled keenly.

"Or we could all go back to the TARDIS. We have tables and chairs there!" She turned, "What do you think, Adric? Shall we?" She stopped. "Where's Adric?" She stood. "Adric!"

Mahl stood beside her, staring towards the lake and the beds of reeds. He turned to her briefly,

"Stay here, Nyssa," then sprang away from the clearing towards the marsh.

---

Adric was running as fast as he could, his head down, his gaze focused on the boggy ground searching out a clear path through the marsh. He had got quite far already, he was surprised. It had been easy to sneak away from the camp and the other two, wrapped up as they were in their smoochy fireside chat, and he'd _had_ to get away from them. If they'd kissed he would've been sick. He would _really_ have been sick. He could taste the sour bile at the back of his tongue right now and, momentarily, it worried him but then he was watching his feet again, picking his way through the wetland's intricate maze of pathways as if it were an equation to be solved.

He knew where he wanted to get to.

The marsh was laced with rivulets that cleared pathways through the reeds, but the water was what Adric had to avoid, so that he had to move by skirting the rivulets' edges, slipping on the muddy banks and brushing back the walls of grass with his arm, sometimes jumping across a tangled matted surface that billowed and sank under every step, and making a lot of noise. Too much noise.

He came to a standstill. The grass was taller here. He could see the huge sky the colour of tin and some distant treetops but needed to be higher to establish properly where in the landscape he was. He stepped up and into the reeds that hissed in protest, craning his neck to scan his surroundings.

The marsh stretched all around him, low trees and shrubs dotted here and there, concentrated back where he had come from and scattered across the near horizon ahead in a line that appeared, suddenly, artificial. He could see the boardwalk over there, a dark charcoal rule stretching low down from his right and passing him in the distance and running on to his left into the marsh. He glanced about, trying to judge the simplest route of approach, then something caught his eye and he ducked down, bobbing up again instantly to get another glimpse of what he'd seen.

A figure was moving along the causeway, coming from the right and already level with him, hurrying onwards in a low shambolic way with an obvious limp, in a grey fur coat and a confusion of details about the head that suggested it was wearing a head-dress of some kind. It seemed to be moving with some urgency.

Adric glanced about him, then jumped down and hastened along the water's edge, jumping up every now and then to keep an eye on the moving figure, following the water round to a place where the ground rose a little and seemed to be more solid. He stepped up, his foot sinking slightly into mud the colour and consistency of chocolate cake, and pushed on through the rushes, careless of the noise he was making now, and came to a flat patch of ground studded with green shoots. He crouched suddenly. Then, carefully, raised his head above the grass-line.

The figure ahead had stopped and was standing on the causeway looking back. It didn't appear to have seen Adric, but was searching among the reeds. Adric held his breath and watched. The reeds where he hid were tall and topped with feathery heads that gave him better cover than the other reeds elsewhere. He could see through the shimmering hazy foliage confident in the knowledge that he was obscured from view entirely, an effect of the distance and of quantum mechanics, he realised with satisfaction.

He felt something flick his boot and looked down just in time to see a brown shape skitter away into the undergrowth. Some kind of mammal. A rat. Adric moved his foot, feeling the mud suck on it, and cautiously looked up again. The figure was still there standing, staring out in his direction.

He felt another tap against his foot, as though someone was drumming their fingers on his boots, and looked down again and froze. There were rats everywhere, a carpet of them rolling across the dirt and between the rushes, around and over his feet and down along the waterside, swarming in the direction of the causeway and the distant stranger.

In surprise, more than anything, Adric stepped away and back, felt his foot come to rest on a soft small body that squirmed and squealed, and staggered backwards feeling his boot slide down a muddy step, his arms coming up, his shoulders going back. He realised too late that he was falling and in some kind of effort to avoid the water flung himself to one side, towards the empty patch of mud that spread beside him. To his horror, as he landed the surface gave, buckling under him, and water splashed up as his arm went in followed by his shoulder, waist and left leg. He sank a little way and then stopped, suspended, the ground about him swilling like a watery porridge, its surface puddled with dark fetid liquid.

He could feel his arm underneath him, snugly immersed in the soft ooze but, moving his hand, could not feel anything else and as he moved the ground seemed to give a shudder and water bubbled up and he sank a little deeper then stopped again.

The mud was under his chin and over his chest. His left arm was beneath him but his right was free and he was trying to keep it stretched out across the surface crust and as flat as possible. The only firm ground within reach was under his right heel which was out of the water and raised up a little. He could feel the tension of that single point of leverage transmitted down through his ankle and calf and along his thigh and knew that if he struggled too much in using it the density of his body would pull him deeper into the mire and under the surface.

He had to maximise his surface area, keep still and, above all, not panic.

Adric lay where he was, staring up at the sky that seemed a brilliant white now, his vision edged on all sides with the dark feathery heads of the reeds that waved and fluttered and became still. The rats had gone, he couldn't hear them and straining his eyes to look whilst trying not to move his head, he couldn't see them either.

He could feel the water at the back of his neck, below his ears, cold as a slab of marble, and about his waist like a hug, and he experienced a moment in which he felt weightless, apparently floating where he lay with a placid backward inertia, the reeds looming up around him like the walls of a corridor and swaying in the wind as if rushing gently by. Then, it was as if he could feel himself tipping over suddenly, as though at the lip of a precipice, all his weight hinged on his outstretched heel, and his breath caught in his chest, his right arm went down and the dark scummy surface bulged and broke, a wave of water and mud coming up about his shoulder and onto his face, into his mouth. His body folded at the middle and his stuck-out foot slid beneath him, went down and kept on going passed the point where he instinctively expected to find solid ground, forcing him forwards. He tried to swim, launching into a frantic breast-stroke, his arms and legs moving in slow retarded circles in the morass, the high reeds whirling, the bright patch of sky careening up and out of sight, and the bog absorbing all of his efforts, just expanding about him, and the futility of his actions suddenly occurred to him, bursting out of him in short gulping sobs that shook the air from his lungs so that he fell back, sinking a little, silent and stilled.

His muscles were tiring, the claggy grip of the mud tightening around his legs and elbows like a deadly embrace. His chin was up, the water under it lapping over his face. He couldn't open his mouth to shout for help for fear of drowning.

He closed his eyes, trying to relax and gather his energy for another big effort, trying to find a still place inside his mind beneath the reeling panic and the thrumming sound of blood in his ears.

He heard his brother's voice, somewhere.

He heard his brothers voice somewhere calling his name, close by, and answered,

"Varsh," and squeezed tight shut his eyes and, reaching out, spread the fingers of his right hand which was still above the surface and felt a sudden tap against the tip of his forefinger like a small electric shock, and then another touch, and then the assured grip of another hand and fingers clasping his palm.

Adric opened his eyes and looked up into his brother's smiling face, the weary handsome expression a mix of amusement and concern, and felt the violent tug on his hand that carried him forwards rising through the mud, his left shoulder and elbow and then the whole arm breaking free enough for him to paddle and claw himself along.

The ground thickened with roots beneath him and suddenly he was clambering out, falling headlong into the hard and reassuringly resistant bank of reeds where he lay, sprawled out, striving for breath.

He was aware of the cold breeze breathing on his sweat-soaked neck and the dank smell of rotting weeds in his clothes and the solid and weighty presence of his rescuer close by. The presence spoke to him,

"You scout as badly as you hunt, Starboy, which is as well or I would not have found you to save your life."

Adric rolled over, spitting a rag of muddy weed from his mouth and wiping his chin with his arm,

"I didn't want your help," he spluttered angrily.

Mahl was looking over at him, a quizzical eyebrow raised. He was crouching at the edge of the bog where a furrow of churned up mud was slowly filling with water and settling back to a smooth treacherous surface once more. A tangle of broken reeds trailed on the ground beside him, their roots still securely locked in the soil. He shrugged,

"Well, you got it."

Adric leaned forwards, draping his arms over his knees. He was shaking with exhaustion and the wet cold, his nose streaming and a fluttering fragile feeling rising in his chest and throat that he tried to swallow down. He heard Mahl speak to him,

"What were you going to do when you saw my Father's ghost?"

He glanced up quickly, a sudden rush of rage bringing warmth into his face,

"I didn't expect to see your Father's ghost!" he said. He looked away, down between his legs again. He heard Mahl stand and say quietly,

"Then who _were_ you expecting to see?"

Adric looked up at him,

"Take me to the island where you say your Father's ghost is!"

Mahl returned his stare briefly, then turned away,

"I will not go there again."

"Then tell me how to get there."

Mahl raised his arm,

"Follow the walkway to its end."

Adric stood with an effort. He hesitated, waiting for the shaking to leave his legs, forcing rhythm back into his breathing, then moved to walk passed Mahl. The boy reached out and caught hold of his arm.

"Do not go," he said.

Adric looked down at the clasped hand and then up into Mahl's stern gaze. There had been an intonation of threat in the primitive's voice against which Adric instinctively prepared to rebel – but looking up he saw something unexpected in Mahl's eyes: Not menace, not quite supplication. Something vulnerable and sincere that Adric suddenly realised he could not question.

Adric pulled his arm free and moved away. He said simply, by way of explanation,

"There was someone, a man I think, on the walkway. He was watching for me."

"Ladra," said Mahl, "The Priest. He lives in the marsh now since leaving the village. He speaks to nobody, not even to me. I think he trusts no one, only the ghosts of the dead, only the ghost of my Father. He will let no one pass."

Adric muttered,

"What is he scared of?"

"What are any of us really scared of?" Mahl replied.

"Ghosts?" said Adric a little sourly. Mahl shrugged,

"No, the living."

Adric turned away and blurted out a thought that had just occurred to him,

"I don't want to go back to the TARDIS!"

He heard behind him a small hiss of exhaled breath that he guessed accompanied a smile, then Mahl's voice again,

"Then you won't go back to the TARDIS! We will stay at my camp. We will sit about the fire and eat bread and drink beer like warriors. We will paint our faces, Starboy. We will tell tales of the gods and of heroes all through the night and feast to the memory of our Ancestors until the sun breaks through the surface of the world again!"

Adric looked around and saw the boy staring briefly towards the causeway, then watched as Mahl turned and walked away, descending gradually into the horizon of feathered reeds. He waited where he stood until the moment was well and truly out of reach, then glanced back briefly, towards where the strange distant figure had been and was now no more, the sky huge and empty above the marshes, the sun already low and tarnished, sharpening the shadows.

He turned and followed Mahl back to the camp.


	10. Chapter 9

9.

The flames of the bonfire lapped at the encroaching dusk, vivid in the failing light. The villagers had moved away from the incandescent stack, down along the slope of the hillside towards the river bank and stood scattered and silhouetted against the setting sun, their shadows leaping from their backs and across the grass that appeared, to Tegan's dazzled sight, as a mass of individually delineated blades, stark and hard as needles. The river shone below her with a blaze of gold that glimmered and slid across the surface of the water as she made her careful descent.

A hush of anticipation had fallen on them all; the music ending, the murmur and bark of conversation dwindling away, and Tegan felt a peculiar calm spread over her, as though she proceeded in the embrace of an extended family, with all the surety and tacit acceptance which that implied. She felt a pang of homesickness suddenly and, looking about her, was relieved to see the Doctor strolling at her side, taller than she had expected – she was always surprised by how tall he was – and bathed in orange light, transfixed, it seemed, by the developing proceedings. He stopped and Tegan stood beside him, uncertain if he was even aware of her presence but comforted by his proximity nevertheless.

The crowd had congregated about an unmarked area several metres from the water's edge, leaving a patch of mud and slurry between them and a small group standing with their feet in the river, including Bréon and another of the elders from the village meeting – Fintan, Tegan thought he was called – and with them both another man she didn't recognise and just outside these three, Bran, spear in hand and bristling with self-importance like a boy in a cadet uniform. She hid a smile at the sight of him and looking around saw the faces of the others, lifted up, golden lit and shining with eager excitement and felt a shiver of expectation, like a buzz of electricity pass through her.

She leaned in to the Doctor, and whispered,

"What's going to happen? and the Doctor whispered back without turning his head,

"I believe we are about to witness a sacrifice!"

The word came at Tegan like a bolt and in the shock of hearing it she felt her stomach swirl, her throat go dry. But, glancing around again, she saw no such alarm or dread, and yet no violent or angry intent in the open faces of the villagers, and a doubt crept into her anxiety that allayed her fear somewhat.

She noticed, also, beyond all the brilliant stares, along the bank and tucked away in the developing shadows, the small roundhouse that belonged – she had by now guessed – to Tubal, the blacksmith, or more precisely, _bronzesmith_. There was a rising fog of smoke above the thatched roof and faintly from that direction the sound of a bell ringing, as if a clock was striking out the hour.

There was a movement from the group at the riverside and Bran's voice declaimed, loud in the still dusk air,

"My people! We honour my Father by our feasting, and by our solemn prayers," (he seemed to glance over towards Tegan and she lowered her head out of embarrassment), "and by the songs that we sing and by our dances, and we honour him now with the gifts that we give!" Beside him, the man whom Tegan did not recognise raised something above his head with both hands. It was a piece of metal, copper, some sort of leaf-shaped blade, flashing in the sun's shallow rays.

With a slight and sudden movement he appeared to snap it in two and then, with solemn deliberateness, lowered it into the shallows, crouching as he did so. He stood again and it appeared that the simple ceremony was done.

Tegan felt herself relax as the small group moved away and up onto the muddy bank. She smiled, looking around as if to share her relief, then realised that everybody, including the Doctor, was continuing to stare at the river, and that the current of expectation was still there in the crowd, all of it focused upon the waters and the spot where the sacrifice had been placed.

The water was darker now and still, the sun low on the horizon beyond and, above, the sparse clouds pink and iron grey. Some of the villagers had brought torches with them that crackled gently in the silence and nearby somewhere a bird whistled and went quiet.

Tegan watched, waiting. She could hear herself breathing.

Then suddenly a cheer erupted from the crowd in an explosion of noise that made Tegan literally jump – shoulders up, head down ("Bloo-dy hell!"). The drums started up again, and the women started singing, and the three great horns blasted out their rasping notes from behind them up the hill. Tegan staggered in a circle, still swearing as the laughter and clamour broke on all sides. The villagers were dancing again, kicking about in the muddy riverbank, hands aloft, shrieking and yelling joyfully, torch flames writhing above their heads, Bréon and Bran and all the adults and the children joining in, even the old women with their long silver hair undone and tossed about.

Amidst it all the Doctor remained unmoving, relaxed and calm if not a little bemused, and Tegan went towards him, seeking the security of his stillness in all this frantic activity, when something lightly struck her on the cheek. She supposed at first that one of the flailing hands of the revellers had caught her and walked on regardless but then she felt another blow, this time on her shoulder. Rain, she thought. She could hear the patter of the drops through all the celebratory noise, and looked up. A silvery hail glittered against the evening sky. Something slapped into her face, wet and firm and cold. She flinched and watched it fall away and land in the mud at her feet, where it lay flipping itself over spasmodically. It was a tiny fish, silvery and alive. Then another appeared beside it, plopping into the sodden earth where it lay pathetically flapping, and then more, falling from the sky onto the muddy shore, flickering and twitching as the villagers rushed to scoop them up in armfuls.

At the river's edge the water was broiling and shimmering as more fish tumbled over one another into the shallows, here and there leaping up into graceful arcs as if fired from some torpedo tube below the water line and falling like shrapnel all around.

She staggered over the gradually deepening carpet of bright scale,

"What's on Earth is happening, Doctor?"

The Doctor was staring in astonishment towards the water,

"I have absolutely no idea!"

"But this isn't normal, is it?" Tegan stepped back in the mud as someone came up and began harvesting fish from around her feet.

"At a guess, I would say that some sort of telekinetic influence is being exerted on the river by the villagers, as a part of this ritual sacrifice!"

"At a guess?"

"At a guess- yes!" stated the Doctor looking hurt at her, "It's not impossible!"

"I thought you said this was Earth, Doctor!"

"Well, yes..."

"This sort of thing doesn't normally happen on Earth!"

The Doctor lifted his hat from off his head, plucked a small silver lozenge from the rim and examined it as it quivered and gulped between his fingertips,

"There are also occasions when marine life can be lifted from the water by strong winds and deposited over the land..." his voice trailed away. He glanced up, then turned towards Tegan again, "But I don't think this is one of them!"

Bréon was approaching, his demeanour jubilant,

"You see!" he thrust his hands skywards, "The Ancestors will provide! We honour them and they feed us!" He laughed. he was heading up the hill towards the bonfire. The Doctor turned with him as he passed and walked hurriedly by his side,

"Just how often does this happen, Bréon? The fish, I mean?"

"With every Feast, Doctor! With every sacrifice we are blessed! We have not cast our nets for over a month. Is that not so, Fintan?"

The man walking beside him nodded and muttered some affirmative which Tegan couldn't help thinking was a little less than joyful.

"And when was the first time it ever happened?" asked the Doctor who was wringing his hat into a tube. Bréon looked over to him,

"When the first sacrifice was made." He smiled, warmly, "I can see you are alarmed by the bounty of our Ancestor's, Doctor. But there is no need. We are loved by them."

"I'm not questioning-" began the Doctor. He started again, "It is just very unusual for these sorts of phenomenon, at this point in your History – You say this happens _every_ evening?"

Bran called over, smiling proudly,

"Our Priest, too, has powerful magic!"

"Only your Priest is no longer around to perform such _magic_," commented the Doctor thoughtfully, leaving Bran to puzzle the point with a frown. Bréon interjected,

"This is not magic," he explained, "It is the ghost of my Father, Doctor. My Father always provided for his people. He continues to do so."

"And I'm sure that is of great comfort, Chieftain, but in the meantime your crops are left rotting in the fields, and all your livestock have been prematurely butchered."

"We feast," said Bran unassailably, "We dance and we are provided for." He gestured to the villagers walking beside them, their arms and smocks filled with wriggling booty. "It is the proper order of the world. It is how things ought to be. It is my Father's will."

"And what happens when there are no more fish left in the lake?"

Bréon paused at the Doctor's exasperated question, the smile slipping from his lips momentarily. He placed his hand gently on the Doctor's arm as they walked,

"The ghosts will take care of us." He hurried on, raising his arms, leading them passed the bonfire and the elders standing, watching with stern faces, towards the gate of the Chieftain's roundhouse. "Come, Doctor! Let us sit at my hearth and I will tell you of all the great things that my Father did when he was alive. Bring Beer! Bring meat! We will Feast into the night!"

Tegan was flagging. By the time she had made it halfway up the hill, her heels were clogged with mud and people were getting in her way in their eagerness to scoop up the last of the miraculous windfall. She tried a few pathetic bleats of "Doctor, wait!" but had to give up as Bréon and his sparse entourage of loyal men were already out of hearing.

She stopped, standing hunched up and fuming, and watched them heading towards the Chieftain's hut, the Doctor hurrying beside them firing anxious questions as they walked. They were observed, she noticed, by a cluster of the older tribesmen who were standing in the firelight, wrapped in their cloaks, the points of their spears shining like rays above their heads, and as Tegan looked on, she saw Fintan break away from the Chieftain's group and make his way over to them. He stood beside them, exchanging glances but no words.

Behind her, the river bank was emptying of people, the fish having mostly been gathered up, and the waters had become still and vacant. Villagers moved passed her, going on and congregating about the fire again where the singing and drums, muffled somewhat by the slope and the slight wind, was continuing.

Softly, she heard something that drew her attention back to the river and away from all the other noise: the sound of the chiming bell coming from the small hut further along the water's edge. The building seemed empty, but the smoke seeping through its thatch and a faint sliver of orange light above the top of the wattle fence indicated otherwise. She glanced around and, satisfied that no one had noticed her, set off with awkward strides across the mud.

The chiming grew louder as she approached the hut, a thin sudden note that suddenly died before being repeated, and there was a smell in the air of burning wood and flames and something harsher, sharp against the sinuses that increased as she drew nearer. The wattle fence was as high as Tegan's throat and she could see the top of the doorway above it open towards the slope and, within, the glow of firelight. As she neared she took more careful steps, tottering a little on the boggy ground, her hands out like a trapeze artist, her eyes fixed on the strip of doorway that was visible.

She was a few steps away when the chiming suddenly stopped.

Tegan stood still, balancing on one foot, caught mid-step, her breath strangled in her chest. She waited, watching the doorway and wandered what she would say if a figure walked out. It was getting darker already and, although that might make her more difficult to see, once seen it would be hard to explain her presence this far away from the bonfire. She looked around for somewhere to hide but the only cover, some bushes at the edge of the nearby spinney of trees, was on the opposite side of the house to her: she would have to cross in front of the doorway to reach it.

Then, from inside the roundhouse, a low rushing noise started up that built quickly to a muffled roar and then subsided, and then broke into a rhythm of hollow deep gasps like the sound, thought Tegan, of a horse or some large animal breathing. After a few moments, she dared some careful steps forwards, satisfied that the muddy squelches of her footsteps were being drowned out by the breathing, until the fence was beneath her chin. She peered over and into the doorway.

"_What are you doing here, Priestess?_"

The voice came from behind. Tegan jumped and turned to see Bran, spear at the ready, cautiously confrontational.

"It is forbidden! You must come away," he hissed but his whisper was quiet enough to be almost conspiratorial.

Tegan relaxed and waved the newcomer away,

"Shhh! I'm trying to see what's going on in there."

She felt the touch of the spear point against the back of her arm and turned back again, this time fiercely,

"Go away, Bran! Shoo!" She jabbed a pointed hand towards him, "I'll zap you!"

To her satisfaction, Bran flinched at the motion. But he stood his ground,

"The Doctor has asked that you attend him in the Chieftain's Hall. He sent me to fetch you!"

Tegan's eyes lifted,

"Oh, what are you, his pet dog?"

"He does not want you to go wandering off and causing trouble," Bran looked sheepish suddenly, "I should not have told you that, perhaps?"

It was too late.

"Oh _really? _ He doesn't want _me_ to wander off and cause trouble?! Is _that_ what he said?" Tegan straightened, putting her hands on her hips, the activity in the roundhouse suddenly forgotten in her indignation, "Well, you go back and tell _the Doctor_ that I don't intend to go wandering off anywhere, matey!" She looked up the slope. She could see the bonfire glowing at the top and made a decision. "You just tell _the Doctor_ that I've had quite enough excitement for one day, thank you very much, and that he needn't worry about me _wandering off and causing any trouble at all_!" She started to the slope "And, whilst you're at it, you tell him from me that so far today, _you tell him_, I've been jumped on by a man in a fur coat and attacked by a _gang_ of crows. I've got mud all over my face and my stockings have been _ruined_," she pointed at Bran, who flinched, "And that's the _third_ pair this week! Not to mention the state of my heels! _And_," she added staring at her raised finger, "I've broken a nail! And all because _he told me_ to take a walk in the wilderness! So you just tell the Doctor that, far from wandering off, I don't intend going anywhere and causing any trouble _all night long! In fact, _you know what, Bran?" She fixed her jaw, her bottom lip jutting, "I'm just going to sit by the fire and have myself a beer. And after I've finished I might just have another one!" She stomped off, adding ruefully, "I haven't been to a good barby in _ages_!"


	11. Chapter 10

10.

The moon rose over the Marshlands, its pallid light bathing the trees and reeds and meadowed slopes in a cool opalescence, dipping a spear of dappled silver into every pool and stream. Two points of fire glimmered in the landscape: the smaller a solitary spark, indomitable in the expanse of grey; the larger diffused with bright specks that drifted and moved like motes struck from an anvil. And through the stillness of Nature the sounds of drums and human voices echoed.

The beer wasn't all that strong and it took Tegan a good five or six beakers to reach a pleasant state of careless and disencumbered self-tenancy. In other words, she got drunk. Not stupidly so. She'd been worse. That time at Shanghai Sam's in Cairns singing along to Adam Ant whilst standing on the table with the lipstick stripes painted across her face. Not as bad as that time. Oh, and there was that whole Strip-a-gram thing down at The Sheep-Shearers, but this was nowhere in that league. She _did_ try to get Bran to sing _Do you really want to hurt me?_ by that George whatsisname she'd just seen on Top of the Pops, the one who looked like a girl (nice shade of eyeshadow though...) but Bran wasn't having any of it and didn't even want to dance when she got up and had a go.

People _were_ dancing, though. Strangely enough, the men were dancing. Back home men never danced and wouldn't have been seen dead dancing – that's what the boys at the disco had always said! But here it seemed that _only_ the men danced, in groups and with choreographed mannerisms and actions that were curiously evocative, she thought, specific and precise. And as she watched, standing with a slight swaying motion, she began to see images of other activities coming through all their prancing and leaping, and hints of stories and histories being enacted: men with imaginary spears chasing fleeing deer with thumb-sized antlers and finger-thin legs, and fighting squatting, snarling creatures with pronged tusks like crooked elbows extending from the mouth; tableaux of the real and natural world out there brought into the flickering bounds of the campfire and described and examined and somehow, in so doing, _possessed_ and controlled, like a kind of simple magic being performed.

The bonfire gave out a kind of balmy liquid heat, and an orange light that turned the dancing men and chattering women, the children nestling drowsily in their skirts, the lounging teens fighting off yawns and falling eyelids, into shifting abstract shapes of black and amber interspersed with pale flashes reflected from the whites of eyes and teeth, lulling Tegan, after an hour or so, into a cosy and blissfull sleep.

Mahl fetched them beer and food from the edge of the Marshes; a sack of tiny fish that they grilled over the fire and ate hot with greasy fingers like savoury sweets, and a jug of thin sour tasting stuff that they passed around and which grew pleasanter with the drinking.

Then they danced, at Nyssa's insistence, at first like they had danced at Cranleigh Hall, as a pair, close to, bobbing cheek to cheek and hand in hand, and Nyssa danced with Adric first to demonstrate the moves and then with Mahl who seemed reluctant and shy to start with so that she taunted him,

"Come on, Mahl, this is the _Charleston_! You're supposed to relax and let yourself go!" But quickly he grew in confidence, prancing and jigging and writhing energetically,

"I Charleston better than you, Starboy! Look!"

Laughing and flashing his white smile.

And then they danced again, more sedately this time, hand in hand at arms length, each watching closely the other's face, marking rings in measured paces, _"This is how we dance where I come from..."_, and Adric sat with the jug in his hands and watched the two revolve in their blissfully concentric circles about the leaping fire as the cool night came down and filled the spaces between them, making the distances grow in the way the distances grew when he had watched the people at the great Starliner banquets, the Deciders and the Elites and the Engineers and the River Fruit Pickers. His brother and the girl. All milling together in their easy unguarded way. And he at their periphery, fascinated and appalled, aloof and distant with a grand and encompassing overview, but with all the details of their subtle interactions remaining unperceived.

---

Tegan woke up with the groggy apprehension that somebody was shaking her by the shoulder.

"Tegan, wake up!"

She was confused,

"Eh, what?"

The firelight had dimmed to an arterial glow. The night sky was black. She looked up and saw the Doctor's face staring anxiously down at her.

"What is it?" She tried to sit up. Then had to stop, "Oh, gawd!"

"Come along, Tegan. I need your help."

"I don't think I can." Tegan forced down a sickly belch and lay back against the log she had been using as a pillow.

"Quickly now, we don't have much time!"

"You go on ahead. I'll be fine here."

"Pardon? Tegan, are you listening?"

"Can't Adric go instead?"

"Pardon?"

"I think I'm going to be sick."

The Doctor frowned at her,

"Have you been drinking?"

"No. Definitely no. Only water."

"Come along," the Doctor said testily, "Before the villagers start to wake."

Tegan hauled herself into a sitting position and looked around. Most of the villagers had wandered back to their homes but a few stragglers lay curled up asleep in the faint pool of light cast by the dying fire. The only music now was the soft rumble of their snoring.

She said, thoughtfully,

"I _am_ going to be sick."

The Doctor tutted, reached down and began to lift her to her feet. She felt too queasy to put up any kind of a fight,

"Are we going back to the TARDIS?"

"I want to go and look at the river. I need you to keep watch whilst I'm there. Come on. Mind that log..."

Tegan stood at the river's edge looking up the slope towards the softly glowing ruin of the bonfire: a faint false sun rising over the hill.

It was nearer dawn than she had first thought. The moon sat heavy and low in the night sky and, above the horizon, the dark was tinged with a pale grey light.

She turned her head slightly and hissed,

"What are you looking for?"

She held a pair of white tennis shoes, each stuffed with a rolled up sock. The Doctor was standing ankle deep in the water behind her, his trousers pulled up over his knees, fishing below the surface with his hands and looking, for all the world, like an Edwardian day-tripper on Brighton beach.

He stood up straight suddenly, something exultant in his expression.

"It's gone!"

"What's gone?"

He splashed over to Tegan who handed him his shoes.

"The sacrifice has gone. It's been taken."

"Oh," Tegan murmured, not caring an awful lot, "Are you sure it hasn't just moved in the current?".

The Doctor finished tying his laces and stood again,

"No. It's definitely gone."

Tegan was staring vaguely up the slope, concentrating mostly on keeping the contents of her stomach where they were. She shouldn't have had that barbecued lamb at one o'clock this morning. Not after the nine mugs of beer, at any rate.

She frowned suddenly,

"What were you talking about all night?"

"You mean at the Chieftain's roundhouse, where I had specifically requested your presence?"

"Yes," Tegan scowled up at the Doctor's condescending glare. The Doctor moved away, looking up at the hill, fingers fiddling behind his back,

"I'm afraid that Bréon was telling me all about his recently deceased Father. It seems he was a very remarkable man."

"You're _afraid_?"

"I think the death of his Father has had a very profound effect upon the young Chieftain."

"He did seem very... tense about it all. Then again, I can't imagine how I'd feel if my Dad died. I'd be distraught."

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully,

"In Breon's case, I fear it has been an altogether more deeply damaging experience."

He walked away, carefully examining the churned up edge of the shore. Tegan tripped after him,

"Do you think he might be having a nervous break-down?"

The Doctor stood looking out over the river to the opposite bank,

"All that I know for certain is that he is mentally in a very fragile state, right now."

"That happened to an Aunt of mine," Tegan mused, "It was horrible. She became convinced that she had to get married to Val Doonican. Grandpa Yovanka was furious with her. He wanted her to marry a Doctor. Or a Lawyer at any rate. I won't tell you what our Rabbi thought... Anyway, she moved away from us, went to Melbourne – made a complete recovery!"

The Doctor was looking down at her.

"You surprise me!"

"Why?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes,

"Never mind."

Tegan was looking thoughtfully at the river,

"I wonder if the Wild One took the sacrifice?"

"Who?"

"Ladra, the Wild One!"

"The Shaman?"

Tegan shrugged,

"Bran was telling me that that was why he got chucked out of the village. He stole some of the sacrifices. It was serious, according to Bran. Maybe he came for this one, too."

"Possibly..." said the Doctor vaguely.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor was staring into the night. He glanced over to Tegan, suddenly aware that she had spoken,

"Mmm?"

"What is going on here, then?"

The Doctor frowned,

"Going on?"

"With the fish."

"Ah! The fish! Yes. The Fish... I have absolutely no idea. Nothing, quite possibly!" He smiled fleetingly at Tegan and stepped around her, stopped and stared along the river.

Tegan grunted,

"Are you suggesting that it's normal in these parts for fish to hurl themselves out of the water like that?"

"It has been known," said the Doctor vaguely.

"When?!"

"I believe Salmon do something very similar during the spawning season!"

"Doctor! These weren't just plopping onto the beach like some unlucky goldfish. They were practically committing mass suicide!"

"Yes they were rather, weren't they?" mused the Doctor, "It was almost like a Biblical plague. Only that was frogs, wasn't it?"

Tegan watched him pace up the bank a little way and then stop. He crouched, took off his hat and seemed to be sighting along the brim towards the upstream turn of the river.

She went over to him,

"Are you suggesting that this is like what happened in the Old Testament? You're not, are you?"

The Doctor stood up, facing Tegan, looking thoughtfully towards her, then reached up pressing his hands against her shoulders,

"No, Tegan. I'm not." he replied, and pushed her gently but firmly to one side before walking back to the shore. Tegan scowled at him as he walked passed, then followed.

They stood and stared at the water. The Doctor said,

"In fact, something tells me that this is almost exactly the _opposite_ of what happened in the Old Testament."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure that I understand any of it. It's all... just below the surface..."

"What are we going to do then?" asked Tegan, who had made no sense of what the Doctor was talking about, but had just realised that, given the mood he was in, she wasn't going to get anything sensible out of him in any case. "Are we going back to the TARDIS?"

The Doctor finally gave her his full attention. He smiled, though rather ruefully,

"I think that would be a very good idea."

Tegan hesitated,

"Except?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows,

"Except what?"

Tegan shrugged,

"Well, what about our mystery of the fishes? Don't you at least want to know what is causing it?"

"Ordinarily," said the Doctor, "I might."

"But in this case, you don't?"

The Doctor sighed,

"Look, what is happening here is unusual, I grant you. But not, as far as I can tell, disastrous. If the village gets free fish every night and has a jolly good party because of it, then who am I to spoil their fun?"

"But it's a _mystery_, Doctor!"

The Doctor shrugged,

"As far as I can see, it's a mystery that harms nobody and benefits everyone."

Tegan mumbled,

"Maybe you should look at it from the fish's point of view."

The Doctor looked at her sternly and she shrugged,

"What about their livestock, Doctor? Their lambs? What about the Winter?"

"Perhaps the fish will keep on falling from the sky," he replied simply.

"But you said–"

The Doctor interrupted,

"Tegan! I cannot make them stop their sacrifices simply because I do not understand what it is they're doing. The sacrifices are a part of their culture, they are what they believe in. Perhaps this _is_ all to do with the spirits of the Ancestors, after all!"

"Are you telling me now you believe in _ghosts_?"

The Doctor's reply was quick,

"How do we know what forces and energies exist in this part of your world at this point in your history? What psychic powers your species may possess? You mustn't go around judging your past by the experience and perceptions of your present. Perhaps right now the human race _does_ possess the ability to summon fish from the water! Do you know for certain that they don't? Perhaps this is where the Biblical plagues of frogs and locusts originate. Have you thought of that? Hmm? Perhaps we are witnessing human history in the making!"

"But Doctor–"

"No, Tegan!" the Doctor's voice shot up an octave and he paused, collecting himself, and then went on, "I will not dictate to these people what they should or should not believe in, or how they should or should not express those beliefs."

He turned his back on her and stood with his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. She could see the tension quivering in his shoulders. Tegan walked to his side and looked up at him,

"And what about Bréon?"

"Perhaps Bréon just needs to come to terms with his grief," replied the Doctor quietly, "After all, the death of a father figure is something that every one of us must face at some point in our lives."

His answer chilled Tegan unexpectedly and she found herself momentarily at a loss for a response. She looked around, then glimpsed the placid river waters flowing nearby. She shrugged,

"So, if nothing is wrong, why were you looking for the sacrifice?"

The Doctor hesitated. He turned his head and glowered at her briefly, then turned away.

"Who lives in that hut?"

It was the bronzesmith's roundhouse, grey now and silent.

"Tubal," replied Tegan as the Doctor walked off. She hurried after him. "He's the bronzesmith. He was working last night, when the sacrifice was being performed. I heard him, I'm sure of it."

"Well, he doesn't seem to be working now", muttered the Doctor. "I wonder if he saw or heard anything during the night?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if _he_ stole the sacrifice. He's creepy enough!"

"The Smith is a greatly respected member of this community! Bréon has nothing but the deepest admiration for him."

Tegan hurrumphed,

"Maybe. But I bet some of those bronze daggers they were sacrificing were worth a few quid!"

"Tegan!" the Doctor sighed his special Tegan-sigh and explained, "This culture views such objects in a completely different way to your materialistic, money-worshipping society. To these people, the value of such things is inherent in their symbolic status."

"Like a Rolls Royce, you mean?" muttered Tegan. The Doctor scowled at her,

"These are very spiritual people."

"Yeah, well, he still gives me the creeps," she mumbled quietly.

They came to the wicker fence surrounding the house and Tegan peered over it and into the open door of the building. There was a amber glow from somewhere within but not enough to see clearly by. It was empty, or the bronzesmith was asleep inside. There was no sound.

"Be careful, Doctor," she called as he made his way around. She glanced behind and saw the long vacant slope rising at their backs and the buildings of the village along the crest of the hill, silhouetted now against the brightening sky. She turned back just in time to see the Doctor go through the gap and hurriedly followed him through and across a small enclosure of grass and mud to the doorway of the house.

"Hello? Anybody home?" The Doctor called tentatively. He hesitated and, when no answer came, stepped into the gloom.

The inside of the roundhouse was spartan except for a clutter in one corner where a blanket had been draped over some kind of furniture, with a pile of black lumpen shapes heaped next to that. The air was thin and exhausted, the acrid edge to it like a keen taste in the mouth. The floor was strewn with a fine grey rubble, gnarled and jagged to the touch and heavy for its size, but was otherwise clear apart from a large puffed out leather sack resting near a saucer-sized hole that lay at its centre. It was from the hole that the soft, ambient glow issued and, looking down, Tegan realised that a fire was burning down inside it, vivid pink like a corral underwater, the light pulsating gently as the embers cooled. The Doctor knelt beside her, lifting the sack experimentally. It appeared to be part of a contraption of wood and as he moved it, the contraption collapsed with a wheezy rush of air and the fire in the small hole flared brightly, sending a frond of sparks flying upwards.

"Bellows," explained the Doctor. He gestured to the heap of dark objects in the corner, "And charcoal, I presume." He got to his feet, "And, under this blanket –"

"Doctor! Look!" Tegan was crouching across the other side of the room staring at something amidst a pile of tangled copper wire. She reached down and lifted it in both hands, turned and showed it to the Doctor.

"Oh dear,' he said quietly.

"Well, I told you–" began Tegan and stopped. The Doctor had his finger up to his lips. His eyes swivelled to the right and he angled his head slightly, listening intently.

Tegan could hear nothing. The Doctor hurried over to the doorway of the roundhouse, pausing momentarily at the threshold to peer out cautiously, before slipping into the open.

Tegan tucked the pieces of the broken copper knife she had found carefully into the top pocket of her jacket, and followed the Doctor outside.

The morning was already lighter. The sky was a deep translucent blue overhead with stars still visible as sharp bright points, but a wash of green and steely grey was leaching upwards like a stain above the top of the fence. The Doctor was nowhere to be seen.

Tegan took a step forwards and had started to call out when she felt a hand lightly cover her mouth. Another grasped her waist from behind and she was pulled back and down into a crouch below the lip of the roundhouse roof.

It was the Doctor kneeling behind her. She scowled over her shoulder at him but stayed silent as he levelled a pointed finger towards the gap in the fence.

A figure appeared, arse first, a dirty leather loincloth above two stick-thin brown legs knotted with stringy straining muscles, an arching back, bronzed and smutty, shiny with sweat, the comb of ribs on either side of the prominent spine swelling with exertion.

The bronzesmith was hauling a wooden tub of water after him as big as a bath, its contents sloshing over the sides and onto the grass as he dragged it across the enclosure and into the house.

Cautiously, the Doctor stood and crept around the sloping thatch to the door, Tegan following closely. They peered into the house.

The smith was in the centre of the room now, kneeling, hunched over the tub, grasping its edges tightly, his head down. He looked exhausted by his efforts, as if he was about to be sick.

_He looks,_ thought Tegan, _like I feel._

They watched and, after a moment, he stood, unfurling gradually as if the effort was unfamiliar and painful, and stayed upright, his back still towards them, rocking gently like a puppet suspended from a thread at the top of his head. Tegan could hear him exhaling, the sound thin and hoarse, quavering at the end of the breath and again at the start of the next. He seemed to stand like that for an age, and Tegan began to wonder if he had fallen asleep, when a kind of thin, drawn out sigh issued from his gaunt figure, unnaturally high pitched and somehow purely animal, that sent a shiver of revulsion through her.

The sigh ended and he moved out of sight, further into the gloom of the hut. Immediately, the Doctor, beckoning Tegan to follow, took the opportunity to nip across the enclosure, through the gap in the fence and out into the open.

They hurried across the riverbank and up the slope towards the village, Tegan feeling a massive sense of relief to be away from there.

"Are we going to tell Bréon?" she asked as they walked. The Doctor's snapping reply made her flinch,

"No! That would be theworst thing we could do to the Chieftain at this moment." He continued more gently, "I'm not sure how he would cope with such a betrayal."

Tegan was alarmed,

"Do you really think he's that... well, unstable?"

The Doctor replied matter-of-factly,

"This is a vulnerable time for him. It is important that he believes he has the loyalty of his people, and that certain others in the village believe that too."

"Certain others?"

"There are people in the village who do not share the Chieftain's enthusiasm for the Feasts and even resent the bounty that they bring."

Tegan thought,

"Are we talking about Fintan, here?"

"Fintan, the _fisherman_, yes."

"Ah, right!" said Tegan solemnly, "A constant supply of free fish sort of does him out of a job."

"Unfortunately, I rather think that in seeking to please the ghosts of his people, the Chieftain has neglected the care of those still living. It would not not take much for the Fisherman to stake a claim to the Chieftain's throne. He is Bréon's Uncle, you know?"

They hurried on towards the top of the slope where the trees and house roofs showed black against the yellow and pink dawn.

Tegan said,

"What _are_ we going to do, then?"

But before the Doctor could reply a shout rang out from up ahead and a figure appeared in silhouette on the horizon. Tegan started but relaxed when she saw who was hurrying towards them.

"Priestess!" It was Bran.

He reached them quickly, his face all ovals of concern,

"Where have you been? I have been looking for you everywhere!"

More figures were appearing above and behind him at the top of the hill, growing tall against the brightening sky and then moving down passed them in a silent parade, on towards the river bank. It was, it soon became clear, the entire village.

"Where is everyone going, Bran?" asked the Doctor watching them pass by.

Bran grinned and took the Doctor's arm,

"We are going hunting, Doctor! Come with us!"

He led the Doctor off down the slope and Tegan stumbled after them, groaning to herself, but loudly,

"Oh no! Not more flying fish!"

But this was already a very different gathering from the previous evening. A hush hung over the subdued villagers as they assembled on the riverbank, broken only by the occasional mew of a cradled baby and the pant and yap of the dogs.

There was a weariness in all their faces which Tegan thought she had not noticed on the previous night. Something beyond the jaded fragility of an early morning-after. Yet, as she and the Doctor reached them, they were greeted with smiles and nods, and when the crowd parted to let them through, they were met warmly by the Chieftain. He seemed tired, there were shadows under his eyes and Tegan thought that the smile he gave them faltered and went out before it should, although she may only have imagined it.

"I hear you are going hunting?" asked the Doctor cheerily. Bréon replied expansively,

"It is all a part of our Festivities, Doctor!"

"Jolly good!" The Doctor surveyed the sliding river, "Fish, again?"

Bréon laughed,

"Who knows?" he said, gently ushering the Doctor and Tegan to one side, "The Ancestors will decide! They will decide! We are in their hands!"

The crowd parted into two groups, forming a widening channel between them down to the water's edge, and stood waiting.

Tegan watched the river. A thin layer of mist was rising over the water coiling into the brightening sky, and further on, towards the horizon, the dawn hung like a ghostly veil above the marshlands.

She was watching for tell-tale bubbles to appear on the still surface, or the revealing splash of a fish leaping crazily into the crisp dawn air, when she became distracted by movement at her side and the realisation that men were coming to the front armed each with a bow and a clutch of slender arrows tipped with jagged chips of black flint. As if, she thought, something larger than a fish was expected to rise up and walk onto the shore.

She heard a cough beside her and the Doctor spoke up quietly,

"This probably isn't the time or place, Chieftain, but I was wondering if perhaps a little later I might have a word with you, about your bronzesmith?"

Bréon raised his hand, politely but firmly,

"In time, Doctor," he said, breathlessly, staring down the slope with an almost frantic look of expectation, "When we have time," he added, "For now, the ghost of my Father delivers our quarry..."

The river surface remained like blown glass. Then, there was a noise suddenly from the far corner of the crowd, harmonies of excited conversation building as people turned and strained to look towards the far bend, forcing Tegan to bounce on her toes to catch a glimpse of what they could see.

Some movement over there had sent swirls of mist billowing out towards the banks, and gradually several pale shapes faded into view, gliding over the surface in close formation, their outlines oddly familiar to Tegan in the half-light: tall, slender necks rising erect from flatish bodies, a curious, elaborate bow of white arching over their backs.

A flock of swans, a dozen or maybe more, was proceeding towards the river bank below them, all bone-china white, like some spectral flotilla.

A murmur ran through the crowd, a ripple of excitement which Tegan thought she could feel almost as a physical sensation, a buzz of energy crackling from villager to villager. Smiles of delight burst all around her, like sparks illuminating their eager faces. Her heart was in her throat. There was little sound at all, but for the gentle splash of the swans' wake lapping on the shore and the sudden nervous yelp of a dog that whimpered and went quiet.

The men raised their bows, balancing the slender canes of the arrows across the hollow of their thumb and forefinger, and fixing the notched ends onto the strings.

The swans had reached the muddy shore below and were starting to walk out of the water, all elegance and grace jettisoned as they waddled forwards on ungainly legs, the size of them suddenly apparent now and startling. The foremost of the flock rose up awkwardly, her thick looping neck bent over and out, her wings unfurling and flapping in two great rushing swipes, the fluttering white tabs of her wing feathers, the fine down rippling across her neck, the brace of muscle and bone flexing across her thick chest, the smooth hard bright-coloured beak and bead-black eyes, all minutely visible.

Tegan moved over to the Doctor and started to speak but he turned with a finger to his lips and hushed her. She frowned crossly but he simply looked away, staring captivated, it seemed, by the sight of the advancing birds.

Tegan looked about her, at all the smiles glittering like watery reflections and the arrow tips vibrating under tension, bristling from the bent heads of the men whose crooked arms shivered with the strain, and then at the swans below parading towards their deaths with their freakish and unnatural deliberation, and suddenly she said,

"No!" her voice soft and reticent at first, and then, louder, "No! Stop!" and ran forwards, barging passed the Doctor and one of the huntsmen, knocking his arrow down with a hand, and yelling,

"Stop! This is monstrous! Stop it!"

Murmurs of surprise turned to cries of alarm in the crowd, the smiles fizzing out, faces turning to stare in horror as the woman rushed down the slope in front of them, waving her arms now and yelling, "Go back! Get away! Shoo! Go on, shoo!"

There was a strange unfocused moment of hush and poised inaction, and then it seemed as though the wind picked up slightly, coming off the waters, fresh in Tegan's face and blew across her and across the villagers, bringing with it a sharpened sense of the developing moment, and suddenly the flock of birds were scattering, flapping away, hissing shrilly, half running and half flying down the bank and, behind Tegan, people were shouting angrily and moving forwards, the startled shrieks of children, the yap and growl of dogs.

Tegan turned and saw one of the warriors was still aiming towards the fleeing flock determined to make at least some sort of kill, and she ran towards him, her arms out, shouting "No! Stop it!" skidding on the mud and barging into him, tumbling to the ground.

People were moving passed her, down towards the water.

She felt a firm grip on her arm that helped her to her feet, and looked up,

"Doctor!" she gasped, "Stop them! It's not right!"

She turned and saw that the majority of the crowd was standing a little way off and glancing alternately from her and the Doctor, to the ground beneath their feet. She looked down.

It was the broken Sacrifice, lying where it had fallen from her top pocket.

Stupidly, she checked her blouse. Then, even more stupidly, she reached down and picked the offering up, holding it out and looking up helplessly. She breathed,

"We didn't steal it!"

Then a commotion from behind made her and the Doctor turn and look towards the water's edge where a small group of people were, shouting and gesticulating at someone who had wandered knee-deep into the current. It was the Chieftain. He was standing with his arms slightly raised before him, frozen, it seemed, in a gesture of desperate supplication towards the now vacant waters, ignorant of the pleas of those nearby.

And then suddenly there was another noise, above all the others, bright and sharp and eerie that made Tegan and the Doctor and everybody turn towards the hut that sat at the corner of the slope close to the water, where a figure was staggering into view, stumbling half naked in a ragged loincloth, his part-baked skin golden in the slanting rays of dawn.

The bronzesmith came towards them, his arms limp by his sides, his head and neck straining forwards like some weird bird, treading awkwardly across the mud like a drunkard and screaming: the noise he was making like the sound he had made before, a strange unsettling keening, only fuller and more desperate.

When he was still only a few metres away, he stopped. He stood still and reached out, gesturing towards Tegan, it seemed, and to the object she was holding. His scream had run out into a hiss and became a silence marking the turn of a breath, but no breath came. He staggered where he stood, wobbling like someone standing on a moving bus, his feet shifting slightly and then he fell, crumpling as though an invisible string from the top of his head had been suddenly cut, and lay face down in the dirt and grass, completely still.

Someone ran forwards and hesitantly knelt beside the figure. It was Bran. He examined the body cautiously, then looked up in dismay.

A groan rose from the crowd and then a hush descended and a voice, strident with authority, cried out,

"Seize them! The witch and the Elder. They have killed the smith! They have defamed our Ancestors! They have betrayed the Chieftain!"

Tegan felt hands grip her arms. She struggled, yelling,

"Doctor!"

But the Doctor had already surrendered without a word into the arms of two village warriors. She shouted, cross at his sudden apathy,

"Doctor, tell them! They've got it all wrong!"

But he ignored her, staring instead down the slope towards the river, his calm expression filled, it appeared, with a measure of detached concentration.

The man who had given the orders stepped out before them. It was Fintan. He reached over and took the sacrifice from Tegan who, in a moment of confusion really, tried to hold onto it before finally letting go. He scowled at her and growled,

"Take them to the Chieftain's hall."

Tegan struggled briefly and cried out, "He–ey!" but was dragged away by her captors, the Doctor stumbling beside her silent and still deep, it seemed, in thought.

As she staggered up the slope she managed to glance behind, and could see the crowd below gathering about the prone form of the bronzesmith with Fintan presiding over them, and further down at the riverbank, knee deep still like a sunken figurehead emerging from a low tide, the Chieftain, his arms out and up, his head raised to the blaze of the empty morning sky, pleading with the Ancestors.


	12. Chapter 11

11.

The dream again. The silver walls and shiny floor just out of reach, gradually slipping by. The helpless fall towards the vanishing point...

Though now there were people all around moving frantically through everything, anonymous and unidentifiable yet certainly known in that way that often happens in a dream, faceless friends and colleagues, all panicking and shouting, some screams here and there, and the sound of the hull-breach klaxon like the cry of an ancient terror.

But through all of this, underneath the sense of movement and activity, dimension and solidity, below the level of sensation and experience, the calm certain knowledge of the ultimate revelation, of the ending of it all...

He was moving into the second corridor now, the far-off light blazing into view around the bulkhead. The people had all gone, the sounds of them echoing from a distance behind him. He was alone. He was a little frightened, but also certain now of what lay ahead in the flashing fluxing light which was drawing closer, the block of darkness starting to descend onto it, squeezing it down so that it became thinner and more glaringly bright, shards of it glancing out towards him, bright enough now to shine through his flickering eyelids.

Adric reached his hand out towards the light, his skin becoming translucent against the brightness, the tracery of his veins glowing like heated metal. The brightness was intensifying as the dark block descended until it had become a molten line along the floor and Adric was closer now than he had ever been in the dream and could see the metal of the door that was sliding gradually closed and the pattern of welds and rivets that whirled across its surface, and the fine specks and lines of dust and dirt that marked the squares of the floor tiling, and also there, in the block of light that shone from the diminishing gap, a row of lancing shadows moving back and forth in a wave.

Adric's hand appeared below him, splayed out, the glare shining around his fingers so that rods of light and shade sprang up, and he reached out, straining to touch the closing blast door and–

Adric woke up. He was in the clearing. The embers of the camp fire were glowing nearby. He was lying with his arm stretched out towards the lambent ash, his hand reaching with fingers splayed.

With an effort, Adric sat up, resting on his side, his elbow supporting him. He looked about the camp.

He could see Mahl and Nyssa lying asleep on the other side of the clearing, their backs towards him, a decent space between them. He could see the upturned beer jug and a confetti of fish tails and bread crumbs: the remnants of their feast. The sky was still dark but the dawn glimmered palely on the horizon. He shivered. It was cold.

Adric stood, careful not to make any sound, and walked silently from the clearing.

He found the causeway quickly despite the dark by bearing more to the right than before and avoiding the treacherous bogs.

The marshes lay below and all around him, a pale daguerreotype in the windless night, the reeds like rusty patches in the iron grey darkness. The trees lining the causeway had thinned out and then fallen away leaving the marshes stretching away uninterrupted on all sides, the fog vapour rising from the waters drifting in a milky layer across the floorboards, swirling about his feet as he walked.

He went cautiously, keeping low, aware of just how conspicuous he was in the landscape under the moonlight. If anyone appeared now he would be seen by them, for certain. Nevertheless, he was determined to go on. The dream was in his head still.

Perhaps he wanted to be seen.

He felt a pricking against his thigh as he walked and reached into his pocket and pulled out the small rough knife that he had found the previous day. It was a delicate and brittle thing, the verdigris along the leaf-shaped blade making it seem more organic than manufactured. He held it out in front of him as he went, feeling a sort of shameful bravado as he did so, aware that, in reality, it was a pretty useless weapon if it came to a fight. But there was something about it, some impalpable quality that did not reside in the chemical properties of its metal and wood, or the elements of its construction.

It belonged here more than he did.

There was nothing but marshland around him now. He couldn't see all that far despite the moonlight because of the fog, but all he could see was tufts of grass and the dark spaces where the water lay.

Much of the causeway was edged with a low banister of rough hewn poles, the proud top ends of the pillars which anchored the structure to the mud. Here, they seemed to be higher than before, now up to Adric's elbows, and the causeway itself had begun to narrow somewhat, as if the whole thing was closing in around him, becoming a tunnel, a passage through the wilderness.

In the distance ahead, Adric could make out a thin structure of some sort, rearing up on either side of the boards. As he drew closer, it resolved into a series of wooden poles, a rough sort of palisade that was adorned with curious objects, stones and feathers, the curling rag-like corpses of mice and rats, the tattered remnants of dead birds, coloured beads and shards of broken pottery.

Adric examined the objects in an interested manner.

He looked about him. He turned and stepped between the totems.

Suddenly, a shape moved in the air ahead of him, drifting across the causeway. A large grey owl, wings wide, wreathed in silence and gliding palely through the darkness.

Adric stood, momentarily startled, and watched it disappear into the night, the fog closing in its wake like a lace curtain.

The darkness settled.

After a while, he walked on.

The poles and their grisly decorations receded into the mist behind. The causeway became thinner here, no more now than the width of one person, and more crudely made as if, perhaps, it had been constructed in a hurry or by fewer people. There were no more totems.

The rushes seemed to grow taller as he walked and Adric had the vague sense of a descent into the marshes, the ground rising to meet him, and now he could see scraps of land on either side and, ahead, something gaunt and towering looming through the gauze of mist as a pale silhouette.

It was a tree, crooked and massive, springing from the low rising mound of an island in the marsh.

The causeway tapered out, merging indistinguishably with the land and Adric stepped over onto grey earth. A steep slope rose before him, curving away sharply on either side; the island fifteen or twenty metres across, no more, and scrubby with low vegetation, ringed with reeds at the water's edge. The tree grew out of its centre, some kind of gnarled old deciduous variety, smooth barked and grey, the gangly knotted branches already bare of leaves.

There was a camping ground nearby, a cleared out patch of earth, a mound of ash and rubble in a small hearth and a trellis of sticks from which a clay cooking pot hung.

The fire was dead but not yet cold, the ash a flurrying insensible pile that left white smears on Adric's fingertips. The pot was empty, boiled dry it seemed. There was a woollen blanket on the ground, naturally coloured in brown and black and cream.

Adric looked about him. He had his knife out, raised point up before him. Like a talisman.

"Is there anybody there?" he called.

There was no answer.

It was growing perceptibly lighter now. He could see tones of colour in the sky and lower down, over the crest of the island, a gash of pale yellow glimmering through the fog. As he looked, he noticed something at the base of the tree. A geometric shape emerging from below the roots, silhouetted against the breaking daylight.

He made his way uphill through the ferns and knotted heather until he was standing beside the pale trunk and saw that the ground fell away sharply here on this side of the island as if the earth had been scooped away, or had slid suddenly into the marshes.

Beneath his feet was the lintel to a doorway. It was the opening of a dark passage into the island's heart.

Adric scrambled down the slope, over red coloured boulders that moved lightly despite their size, and stood before the cave mouth. It was formed by great slabs of the red stone that was scattered all around. Faint lines and intersecting shapes were scored across its surface. The stone felt parched and finely textured under his fingertips.

Adric's shadow fell faintly before him across the threshold and he could see a little way into the passage and along the walls and the moss-grown floor that descended in a gentle slope, and thought that he could make out more complex patterns in the gloom beyond: a fall of boulders, some kind of rock structure.

He moved towards the opening and then stopped.

It was the entrance to a tomb, he guessed, and though normally he would have despised the sensation as irrational and superstitious, he felt a sudden unease about crossing the threshold by himself that kept him standing in the open, the dagger raised before him.

He could see shapes in the darkness, pale and diffuse.

"Is somebody in there?" he called.

No answer.

The marsh was behind him, brightening in the dawn, the mists, formed in the region where warm air condensed above cold water, moving now in the convection currents set off by the heat of the rising sun, light sparking here and there as bands of glancing photons shone through the glowing field, reflected on the water's surface, passed back through the medium of the air and struck the retina of his eye.

There was a real explanation for everything.

He turned back to the tomb entrance.

"I don't believe in ghosts!" he called but he could not disguise the uncertainty in his voice, as if he was not sure for whose benefit the assurance had been made.

A spur of daylight shone between his legs and lay before him along the passage floor into the darkness where pale shapes were solidifying. He could see something recognisable further in,

"Who is that?"

He waved his blade into the entrance of the tomb as if some sort of trap would be sprung, but nothing happened. He moved forwards,

"I'm coming in. If you can hear me– If you can understand me– I'm coming in".

He went into the tomb, and the ghost of Mahl's Father sang to him.

---

"What makes you so sure he has gone to see your Father's ghost, Mahl?"

"He has not gone to see my Father's ghost."

They were on the causeway. Nyssa, still tired and somewhat stiff from her camp floor bed, was lagging behind a little way.

"Oh." Nyssa hesitated, "I thought we were following him to the island, Mahl?"

Nyssa turned and looked behind her. She said thoughtfully,

"Only, he may have gone back to the TARDIS. He just needs to follow the causeway back in that direction. I think he may have gone back to the TARDIS."

"He has gone to the island."

"But why, Mahl? I don't understand."

"He has gone to see the ghost of his brother."

Nyssa paused, her lips pursed thoughtfully in an expression of doubt,

"Well... I don't know, Mahl. You see, Adric does not believe. In ghosts. He doesn't believe. You see, Mahl, he is a rationalist. He is a Mathematician."

"He believes in nothing," said Mahl simply from ahead, "He believes in nothing, as something. He believes in the absence of things. He believes in ghosts."

They walked in silence for a while. The morning was brightening, the sun glowing through the mists ahead of them.

Nyssa said,

"What do you think he will do when he gets to the island?"

"I don't know."

"I'm afraid, Mahl. For him. I don't think he's ready for what he may find there. He is very... immature, in many ways."

"How did his brother die?"

Nyssa blinked at the boldness of the question. She considered it.

"I'm not entirely sure. Adric never speaks of it, but the Doctor has mentioned it. He was killed by alien creatures... I think. Although, there was something about them which was significant, strange... I don't know what. Somehow, they were known to Adric's people. Not completely alien. I think Adric saw his brother die, or was near him when it happened, at least. It was in the Starliner. Adric's people lived in a... well, it was like a giant metal bird... a very great boat, which had crashed. Adric was there when the alien creatures attacked and, and killed his brother. He was close by."

"Then he has need to speak with the ghost of his brother."

"Well, I'm not sure..."

"He has things left to say," Mahl turned as he walked, smiled fleetingly, "Perhaps he will speak to his brother's ghost through the ghost of my Father?"

"I don't... yes, perhaps." Nyssa considered at last. She paused. She went on, "He is not a very spiritual person, Mahl. He comes from a different kind of culture to you or I. He's very like the Doctor in that respect."

"The Doctor? He is your Chieftain? Like the Elder of your tribe?"

Nyssa shrugged,

"I suppose you could say that."

"Adric feels for him, like he would feel for a Father?"

"It's possible. Yes."

"He is like your Father, too?"

"No. No," said Nyssa quickly, "He's like my brother. No, my Uncle. But more... he is very wise but also very... simple, sometimes."

"He is like Ladra, the Wild One," considered Mahl, "He is a Shaman."

"I don't know if I understand what a shaman is."

"He walks between worlds, between earth and air, between wise and foolish, between life and death. That is his role. It is the place he inhabits. Where one thing becomes another. Where things are... uncertain."

Mahl looked across at Nyssa who was walking beside him now. She stared back. He smiled at her. He was holding his bow, an arrow notched in the string. He turned back to look along the causeway and came to a stop, staring ahead, transfixed by the sight of something.

"Mahl, what is it?"

Nyssa could see, twenty or so metres further on, an arrangement of poles rising alongside the causeway. There seemed to be things hanging from them, dark objects of varying sizes, difficult to distinguish at this distance.

"Is it dangerous?" she asked.

"It is... a barrier! We cannot pass!"

Nyssa stared at the boy who was suddenly pale, the dark irises of his eyes ringed with white. She looked back towards the grey structure, like a gateway of sorts, marking the boundary of a new land, and peered beyond it. The marsh over there appeared the same to her. The walkway looked no different.

She said,

"But, I thought you'd already been to the island, Mahl? You must have passed though here before?"

"I did not come this way. I came across the reeds and through the water."

Nyssa frowned and walked on, speaking whilst studying the mysterious structure as it drew nearer,

"There's nothing there to stop us, Mahl. It looks safe to me. We can walk through. It's just a series of poles, Mahl! There are objects on the poles, but they're just the cadavers of small animals. There are birds and rodents. They're all dead!" She turned and called out to the boy, "There's nothing to stop us going on!"

Mahl stood where he was, rooted to the planking. Nyssa added,

"It's harmless, Mahl! I can't see anything to be afraid of. Why are you so wary of it?"

"It is a warning, Princess! It is Ladra's doing. He built it so that we cannot pass. We cannot pass! Only the dead may pass!"

Nyssa frowned again, suddenly irritated by his anxiety. He seemed genuinely afraid. It was ridiculous: He hadn't been afraid of the wild boar!

She walked forwards and heard Mahl shout out,

"Nyssa!" and turned to see him run a few paces towards her but then stop.

"We cannot go on, Nyssa!" he pleaded with her, his expression affectingly transparent, as if he was witnessing some terrible crime.

"There's nothing there!" she replied, "Nothing but some poles and dead animals. It's perfectly safe. Look, I'll demonstrate!"

She turned and walked between the poles. They slid passed on either side, their morbid bunting limp and spangled with moisture from the drifting fog. When she reached the last of them she turned around quickly and looked back, shivering privately and breathing with a faint gasp.

She called to Mahl on the other side,

"Mahl! It's perfectly safe. Come on. Walk through!"

He did not respond.

"Mahl, this is silly! Walk through – it won't hurt you. I promise!"

She stretched out her hand.

There was a moment's hesitation, then Mahl seemed to come to a decision, steeling himself visibly, his fists clenching about his bow and the arrow, his shoulders rising, his mouth widening in his tense jaw, pale teeth flashing. He lowered his head and suddenly lunged forwards into a run, the sound of his quickening footsteps on the boards the only noise in the twilight. As he reached the gateway, he closed his eyes, making a high sound as he ran, a strangled cry, and charged on through.

Nyssa moved aside as far as she could (the walkway was narrower here) as Mahl skidded to a standstill beside her. He stood, bending over slightly, hugging his tunic with his arms.

Nyssa looked down at him,

"See, Mahl! There was no danger!"

The boy's eyes were closed, tightly closed. He was breathing hard, the breaths hissing tremulously through his nose, harder than she would have expected from so brief an exertion.

"Are you all right, Mahl?"

He did not answer. Nyssa reached out to touch his shoulder and was surprised when he pulled away from her, turning his head, clutching his sides more tightly.

She lowered her hand and watched him, frowning.

Gradually his breathing slowed and became calmer. Then he raised his head and opened his eyes. They were bright with tears. He looked behind him towards the posts. Then he looked out towards the marshlands that lay on either side.

He turned to face Nyssa but did not return her smile,

"We must go on," he said and, cautiously, started walking.

Nyssa followed him, glancing back just once towards the posts and their tattered decorations fading into the grey mists.

The causeway was narrow now and they walked in single file and gradually, over Mahl's shoulder and head, Nyssa could see a large tree and the grey dome of an island emerging from the marsh. She leaned towards Mahl, and asked, as much to break the silence between them as anything,

"Is that it, Mahl? Is that the Island of the Dead?"

Mahl did not reply but he slowed a little and she felt the gap between them close.

They reached the end of the causeway and stepped onto the bank of dirt that rose up out of the waters, the crescent of its horizon thrown into sharp relief by the brightening sky.

Silently, Mahl went over to a patch of ground where a fireplace had been made. Nyssa followed him and stood quietly as he knelt and examined the ground. At last, he spoke,

"Ladra has not been here all night."

He looked up and, briefly, Nyssa expected a smile, some fleeting indication that they were on good terms again, that she had been forgiven. But he was stern, his mouth a bar. He looked towards the crest of the slope and stood, and started to walk uphill. Nyssa followed.

She was a little confused, and slightly angry. Why did she feel as though she needed his forgiveness? What had she done that he considered so wrong? She wasn't sure but if he wasn't going to tell her, she didn't want to ask him.

So, she just followed the boy up the slope, cross and contrite in equal measure, to the top of the mound where they stood side by side, looking down the scree strewn with red coloured boulders, the entrance of the tomb beneath their feet.

Sunrise burnished the horizon. The sky was bright, the mists white now, the water and the reeds of the marshlands tones of slate and sand.

Nyssa turned to Mahl and asked quietly,

"Are you angry at me because I made you come through the barrier?"

He shifted where he stood, staring fixedly down, avoiding her gaze. At last he said,

"I was angry at myself."

"Why?"

"For fearing to cross the boundary. I was afraid, but you were right. We have survived the barrier."

Nyssa felt herself relax, a wash of relief flooding her chest like a gulp of spring water, spreading out through the unravelling knots of her stomach, "I'm sorry, Mahl," she muttered, "It's my fault. I made you cross the boundary. You did it for me."

Mahl looked up, meeting her gaze with his own, his expression still stern but now accessible. He said,

"I did it for my Father."

She felt a sudden fluttering sensation rise in her throat, making her swallow and lower her head, trying to find a smile from somewhere. She looked up at Mahl and stepped around him, beginning,

"I know, Mahl. I'm sorry. I was just–" when suddenly the ground vanished from under her.

She had stepped beyond the edge of the ridge, her foot slipping and tipping her backwards so that she sat heavily on the dirt.

"Nyssa!" Mahl lunged to catch her but she was already sliding down the slope – a cascade of loose earth and stones and red bricks falling about her as she tumbled head over heels and came to a halt in a sitting position on the level ground.

Mahl scrambled down and was quickly beside her, kneeling close by,

"Princess, are you hurt? Say something!"

She had her arms across her knees, her head forwards, her mass of dark hair covering her face. She was shaking, a sort of faint whimpering coming from her huddled form.

"Princess, are you all right?"

She looked up. Her cheeks were flushed. There were tears in her big eyes, and a pained expression on her face.

"I think I might have bruised myself!" She was trembling but a smile was playing over her lips and, easing herself up, she massaged her bottom with one hand, "Ouch!"

The smile broke and suddenly she laughed aloud, and, in surprise and relief, Mahl laughed with her, relaxing and slumping onto his hands and knees beside the girl, his arm across her back so that she leaned giggling into him and their laughter rose together in a harmonious release.

"You will have a bruise!"

Nyssa nodded, wiping away a tear,

"I think so. Ow! Look!" She showed her leg where the material of her trousers had torn and a grazed knee showed through. Mahl patted her shoulder, his hand moving up below her long dark hair,

"Come, warrior Princess, you have fought well! I will carry you from the battlefield!"

She glanced up just as he looked down and they were close, nose to nose, their eyes fixed on each other, and moving together, each drawn towards the opposite by an irresistible attraction, when suddenly there was a noise. A low mournful groaning sound.

They turned and stared towards the mouth of the tomb.

The shadows there were moving, the pale shapes in the depths coalescing and then emerging in the figure of a man, slender and white as bone, a face as blank as a china plate, its hand raised and reaching out towards them.

Nyssa felt the strong fingers leave her neck, their touch remaining in the sensitised skin like molten drops, and turned and saw the boy cowering beside her, his head facing away from the apparition.

"Mahl, what is it?"

He hissed back at her,

"It is the ghost! It is my Father's ghost!"

And the ghost of Mahl's Father shuffled forwards from the darkness and into the daylight.


	13. Chapter 12

12.

Tegan sat glumly, chin on knees at the doorway of the Chieftain's roundhouse. She was looking out along the fenced approachway and onto the village green. A village guard sat cross-legged nearby, tampering in a bored way with the spear lying across his thighs. Occasionally someone would cross Tegan's field of vision, moving with a discreet urgency between the village houses and the river bank where, as far as she knew, the Chieftain was still standing up to his knees in the slowly moving waters.

"Remind me again," she called behind without looking back, "just what you thought was the _very worst thing_ we could do to the Chieftain in his current state of mind?" There was no reply. She humphed and rolled her eyes and added, still gazing towards the outside, "It wasn't anything to do with scaring away the ghosts of his ancestors and then killing his blacksmith, _was it_?"

She turned and looked into the room. The Doctor was crouching at the far side of the roundhouse, examining something in the gloom. Closer by, the Chieftain's younger sister, Eriu, was busy around the fire. She smiled her sad smile as she looked up and Tegan smiled back.

They had been left in her company by their brusque and business-like escort whilst everybody, including an older woman who Tegan guessed to be Bréon's Mother, hurried back to the river bank. The guard had been posted at the door but their imprisonment had about it a certain unhurried, procedural quality that reminded her (incongruously) of an encounter she had once had with the Spanish police: It was clear they had been put to one side until the drama of events had subsided.

"Doctor, what are they going to do with us?" she had asked, but he had just shrugged in a distracted way and wandered over to where a pile of sheepskins and straw mattresses made up the sleeping area of the living space. There, he had sat down, fingers steepled before his pensive gaze.

"We didn't mean to do anything!" Tegan protested to the girl who moved quietly at the fireplace, "We're sorry. Honestly, we are!"

Eriu had smiled and spoken, introducing herself and stating gently,

"I'm sure you meant no harm." Then she had poured them some tea.

Fifteen minutes had passed and outside the dawn arose, filling the doorway and the cavity of the roof above Tegan's head where the smoke from the fire had accumulated with a bright golden haze.

Tegan stood and went over to the Doctor.

"Doctor, what is _happening_?"

He glanced up at her and then back towards the piece of furniture he was examining. It was a robust construction of wooden uprights and shelves made of what appeared to be slate, the edges finely leaved, backed with a pale luxuriant animal pelt. There were objects on the shelves.

"Eriu, these ornaments, where do they come from?" called the Doctor, standing but bending his head beneath the roof which was low in this part of the room.

"They come from many places of the world. We traded with many peoples from the North and the West in the days before the ghost appeared. We would trade them fleece and the metal which Tubal had made and sometimes they would make us gifts to show their favour. My Father treasured these above all things."

"Some of them appear to be missing?" suggested the Doctor interestedly, indicating several gaps in the display.

"They have gone to the Ancestors," said Eriu indicating the doorway and, by that, Tegan assumed, the river. The Doctor hummed to himself and crouched again,

"But these ones have been left here," he mumbled then reached out towards the shelves. He hesitated, looking up,

"May I?"

Eriu nodded and he picked up a pale cone-shaped object and examined it with interest,

"A whale's tooth, Tegan. Look," he held it up and Tegan could see faint decorative lines scratched across its surface, intricate patterns of dots and dashes. She took it and turned it in her hands, then asked Eriu with a frown,

"'The days before the ghost appeared'? Haven't the ghosts _always_ been with you?"

Eriu smiled,

"It was my Father's great pride, that he spoke with the Ancestors. He met a ghost at the heart of the marshes and spoke with him."

"When was this?" asked the Doctor from below.

Eriu thought,

"This was when I was young. Medhal has raised and buried a pack of hounds since then."

"And your Father spoke to a ghost?" asked Tegan doubtfully, "What was this ghost like?"

"He was taller than any man and as pale as the moon. As white as new bone, my Father said. Tubal agreed that this is how they appear to us. My Father spoke and the Ancestor spoke. They spoke together. Then the ghost went back to the lands of the dead. We feasted for a full moon. I remember that. I remember my Father's joy and laughter. He picked me up and carried me on his shoulders through the village. It was a happy time. The village was as one, we were happy together. Now... things have changed. They changed when my Father died."

Tegan nodded and smiled and handed the whale's tooth back to the Doctor. She asked, carefully,

"Eriu, why weren't you down at the river side, where your... with the Chieftain and the others?"

The girl flashed a look of anguished guilt,

"I do not like the Feasts," she said shyly, "The people behave... as though they were not themselves."

The Doctor had returned the tooth to the shelves and, reaching forwards, picked up a brick-sized, vaguely lozenge-shaped object that looked like a lump of coal but which, as his reaction showed, weighed far more. Eriu seemed suddenly anxious, moving forwards with her hand raised, then hesitating. The Doctor looked up at her,

"Is everything all right?"

She thought and nodded, smiling nervously, explaining,

"The stone is magical. The Wild One always said so. It was given to my Father by traders from the North. But you will be safe, I am sure!"

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, weighing the stone in his hand. Tegan said,

"Doctor?" and he answered her with a grin,

"Allow me to test a theory..."

He transferred the stone awkwardly into his left hand and with his right reached into his jacket pocket, feeling for something. A panicky look came into his face and he hurriedly reached across to check his left pocket. Then realisation dawned. He sighed and hung his head.

"Doctor, what's wrong?"

"It's gone. I'd forgotten!"

"The Sonic Screwdriver?" asked Tegan, suddenly realising.

"It's at times like these that one realises just how... ah!" he fished something out of his pocket and held it up. A key, dark and simple with an oversized ring.

"The key to the TARDIS? What good is that?"

The Doctor smiled and raised an eyebrow,

"Watch!" he said, adding in a gleeful tone, "Who needs advanced technology?!"

He held the stone up with the key beside it and brought the two objects together slowly until the key suddenly twisted in his fingers and snapped against the stone. The Doctor opened his right hand with a flourish, like a conjuror doing a card trick, leaving the key stuck where it was.

Eriu moved away, alarmed it seemed. But the Doctor smiled comfortingly,

"It's perfectly safe!" he explained.

"It's magnetic?" Tegan frowned, "Is it unusual?"

"Oh, it's rare, but not strange," said the Doctor taking the key and placing it back in his pocket. He showed the stone to her, "They are called lodestones. Perfectly natural phenomenon. Iron rich rock that has undergone tremendous heating below the Earth's surface and become highly magnetised."

Eriu, who had been listening with a deepening frown, said suddenly, and in a way that suggested she had comprehended something that she had only before suspected,

"It is not magic?"

"No, it's not magic," said Tegan flatly, but was surprised when the Doctor shrugged and said,

"I rather think that it _is_ magic!" He flashed a smile towards them each in turn, then stared again at the stone, "It cannot be seen, or touched, it has no weight, or density, and yet it exerts an influence over physical objects that can make them behave in surprising and dramatic ways." He continued, his enthusiasm for his subject rising and bubbling over in his voice, "It is a relatively weak force, and yet, harnessed and supplied with energy, it can become immensely powerful, the fundamental principle of all advanced technologies, even those of your own planet, Tegan, er, and Eriu! You may not realise this, Tegan, but almost all forms of higher technology rely upon the properties of the magnet. Without the humble magnet, you could not even create..."

He fell silent, staring into the gloom under the eaves of the roundhouse with his mouth open. Tegan bent over to him,

"Is something wrong?"

He looked at her, his eyes wide, the alarm in them unsettling. He replied in a whisper,

"I'm afraid things may not be all that they appear!"

---

Even as the figure came towards them, Nyssa suspected that something was wrong.

Mahl was at her back. She could feel the weight of his body shaking against her spine. It was clear that he was convinced by the apparition and terrified by it, but she was not so sure.

She stared, frowning, as the vision came into the daylight, part of her panicky and alarmed, but her greater, less instinctive self calm and disinterested and analytical. She could see that the ghost moved awkwardly, a slightly small and dishevelled figure, solid, weighty, vaguely untidy, its outline sharp and hard. It was pure white all over except for a caramel-coloured stripe across its collar where a copper necklace hung and it was groaning still, almost howling, the sound of it strangely dislocated and echoing, like somebody hollering into a bucket.

Nyssa called,

"Who are you? her voice frustratingly smaller than she had hoped for.

The ghost stopped and fell silent. It raised its hands to clutch at its pale faceless head as if in sudden pain, holding its ears as if to block out an unbearable noise. Then, with a faint click like a joint snapping, it raised its arms into the air, lifting its head away from its shoulders.

There was another head below it.

Adric's laughter jabbered through the stillness as he stared down at the two figures crouching at his feet. He lowered the white helmet he had been wearing, holding it in the crook of his arm, his free hand resting on his hip.

"See! I told you!" he laughed, "I told you, didn't I?"

Nyssa stared open mouthed at him.

Adric laughed again,

"See! It's a costume, that's all," he held out his hand, displaying his white clad arm, "Like a suit of armour. Look! Made of some sort of ceramic!" he tapped the helmet against his forearm and it chimed, "The _whole_ thing, the helmet and the boots! But not _just_ the costume! _Everything_ is ceramic. The doorway here, listen! See! It's made of fired clay! The _whole_ thing, all the way in. Nyssa, come and look!"

He went back into the mouth of the cave, stepping into the darkness. After a moment, he reappeared,

"Nyssa! Come on – you _must_ see this!"

Nyssa, amazed and speechless still, struggled to her feet and went over to the cave mouth, hesitating at its entrance before venturing into the gloom.

It was cooler inside. There was water under her feet and the faint hydrogen sulphide whiff of degrading plants. Regular, tessellated shapes patterned the walls.

"What sort of cave is this?" Nyssa called, feeling her way carefully along. Adric's pale figure could be glimpsed further ahead, lower to the ground, as if crouching. He was seated.

"It's not a cave," came his voice still bright with enthusiasm. "Careful! There's broken equipment on the floor there."

Nyssa trod carefully, feeling her way as she went, becoming gradually aware that the patterns and shapes incised into the surfaces around her were more than merely decorative.

"This is some sort of technology, isn't it?" she called ahead, "We're in some sort of building. A bunker."

"A spaceship," announced Adric, laughter in his voice. "It's a spaceship."

"But these walls... they're made of stone."

"Of clay. There are elements of a metal structure here and there but they are isolated, _insulated_. There's some wood, too, but most of the surface is pure fired clay. This island, Nyssa, it's not the island of the dead, it's a submerged spaceship. What did I tell you?"

"But what's it doing here?"

Nyssa could see more clearly in the darkness now. She was standing in a wider space that opened out from the end of the tunnel. Adric was seated nearby, in a high-backed chair that glinted with a glassy sheen in the faint light. Behind it was a waist-high surface curving around on both sides, studded and incised with mysterious and precise marks and buttons: Instrumentation. A control panel.

"I would guess that it crash-landed some time ago," said Adric, "judging by the age of that tree outside. I thought at first it was just some sort of boat, a sunken ship, but there is evidence everywhere that it is extraterrestrial technology far in advance of anything found on this planet, and designed for space flight. Though obviously something went wrong... Wait!"

He fell silent, his hand raised, his forefinger extended towards the ceiling. He was listening. In the silence, Nyssa stood and listened too. She could hear the faint tink of dripping water somewhere and the soft, buzzing intensity of the enclosed cave air. Then something else: a ringing in the ears, uncomfortable, that became a high pitched note rapidly descending the scale in a continuous tone, ending in a deep, resonating hum. There was silence again. Adric tipped his head, smiling,

"It'll happen once more," he said, and as he spoke the note came again, reverberating around them and then stopping suddenly as before. "It goes off every five minutes or so. Most of it is pitched beyond our hearing threshold – I think it's an alarm signal, perhaps to do with the crash... it's still sounding after all this time. Goodness knows why everything didn't just shatter on impact. Degree of entry, I suppose. There's evidence of a material structure outside which may have been some sort of parachute." He thought quickly, "Or the remains of a solar sail. It's all been just sitting below the surface."

He moved his arm expressively and the movement caught Nyssa's eye so that she looked and thought, and asked,

"Where did you get the suit from?"

"It was here!" Adric sat back in the chair, his arms up on the rests, his legs apart, demonstrating the suit as he had found it. He leaned forwards, "You see. This was the pilot's space-suit, at the flight console of the spaceship. The locals called this place the island of the dead, and thought the alarm was someone singing, and that this was a ghost."

"It's a suit!"

"Yes! It's made of a fine sort of porcelain, I think, with interlocking plates at the joints, see? It looks fragile, but it's actually quite robust!"

"But it's a suit, Adric."

"Yes, made of ceramic, like I said. I said that. See! I told you! It wasn't a ghost! There's no such thing as ghosts!"

"Adric, it's a _suit_," said Nyssa pointedly now, "_Who_ was _wearing_ it?"

Adric seemed to hesitate for one moment before answering,

"No one."

He stood up and leaned over the desk of brittle-seeming instruments, talking quickly as he did so,

"I suppose it was a solar yacht, I can't find any evidence of a propulsion system. There's some kind of mechanism attached to the outer wall over there, a series of wooden levers, a small amount of plastic, but most of these instruments seem to be related to navigation, although there are no connections from this console to the rest of the craft, and no power cables or electrical junctions anywh–"

Nyssa stepped in front of him, grabbing hold of his arms and pulling him around to face her,

"Adric! Was the suit _empty_ when you found it?"

Adric avoided her gaze,

"Yes," he sighed feebly, his eyes darting back to hers and then away towards the shadows in the corner of the room.

Nyssa followed their direction, then turned and walked carefully over to a space beside the console where she stood for a moment staring at the floor. She shook her head slightly, breathing out a long, slow breath, then looked up,

"Oh, Adric!" she whispered, "Why did you do it? Just to play a silly trick?"

"It was dead!" snapped Adric, waving his arm out, angry and indignant, "It's been dead a long time! It wasn't Mahl's Father, Nyssa! He was never here. It wasn't his ghost! They don't exist! It's just a dead alien and this is just a space suit and this whole place is just a spaceship!"

"It is not," said Nyssa softly, her outrage tempered to a pitying distaste, "It is a tomb."

They heard a noise from the direction of the corridor and turned towards it, and Nyssa hurried over to the door frame and looked upwards. She called out,

"Mahl!" as the figure showing black against the rectangle of sky scrambled out and disappeared from sight. She took a step forwards, then hesitated and looked back at Adric standing before the chair in his white armour, the helmet like a trophy slung against his thigh.

She seemed about to say something but then thought again, biting her lip, and turned and hurried upwards towards the daylight. As she left, a single pure note rang out through the gloom, plunging rapidly to a bass sound that throbbed and rumbled briefly, and then stopped, reverberating in silence.

---

"Doctor?"

The Doctor glanced at Tegan slack-jawed.

"Tegan," he began in a faint monotone, "I have made a very serious mistake."

Tegan was about to ask why, when a sudden cacophony of voices announced the arrival through the door of a crowd of villagers: men with spears, most of the Elders, amongst them Fintan and at the centre of them all, the Chieftain.

Urgently, the Doctor spoke up,

"Chieftain, thank goodness you're here!"

But he was pushed aside by two warriors, their weapons raised. Bréon was ushered passed him, a forlorn, lost-seeming figure amidst the gathering, his clothes and hair dripping wet. The Doctor tried to reach the Chieftain, but was held back by the guards.

Tegan became aware of people beside her and of hands gripping her elbows tightly. She glanced to one side, into the point of a bronze spear, "Hey! Watch it!", then turned to her other. She gasped,

"Bran?!"

Bran waved his spear vaguely in her direction but lowered his head, staring at his feet.

"I am sorry, Priestess!" He stared at his feet.

The Doctor was protesting,

"I must speak to the Chieftain!" but without a word the guards began to move him towards the door. He struggled briefly, looking behind into the gloom at the centre of the roundhouse where the Chieftain was surrounded by a small knot of people, and shouting out,

"Bréon! I must speak to you, it is extremely important!"

"The Chieftain speaks to no man now that his Ancestors are silent!"

It was Fintan, moving out of the crowd and facing the Doctor who had stopped struggling but was being held firmly, his arms behind his back.

"He will not speak to you!" he sneered, showing his teeth.

"Fintan! This is extremely important!" explained the Doctor, "You may all be in great danger. It is vital that we do something immediately!"

"We _are_ doing something!" said Fintan grimly as he led them from the roundhouse.

They were escorted out into the open, through the palisade and onto the green where the villagers were assembled, the Doctor protesting all the while. The waiting people seemed to hang back, at once involved but not participating, like spectators at a sports event.There were only a few warriors in their entourage, Tegan realised, five, six, along with a couple of the elders but that was all. Everybody else was back in the roundhouse with their Chieftain or part of the startled audience and she saw what this implied for her and the Doctor's safety: It was clear, at any rate, that this was _not_ a coup.

Now individuals were peeling away from the crowd and running alongside Tegan and the Doctor as they stumbled across the hill, their anxiety matched by a terrible fascination, everybody carried by a tide of events whose momentum, it seemed, no one could withstand. Like being caught in a landslide, like the party the previous night with its rising sense of occasion, and gathering anticipation. It felt like the sacrifice.

A flush of heat and a giddy sense of panic washed over Tegan as the thought occurred to her,

"Doctor, where are they taking us?"

The slope was below them, the ploughed up bank and the river, a fading band of morning mist glowing above the waters.

The Doctor was putting up no resistance, but the pitch of his voice had risen,

"This will do you no good, Fintan! Nothing will be gained by it!"

"Doctor? What's happening?"

Tegan struggled against her captors' grip. Bran's hold was slight, perfunctory, but the warrior on her left held her arm securely and she couldn't break free. The Doctor called over,

"Tegan, try not to struggle!"

Tegan looked at him and scowled.

The villagers were moving with them now, every one of them, curiosity pulling them along like some magnetic force. In the crowd Tegan caught sight of faces that she recognised: Cessair, the old woman; children from around the fire, men who had danced the night before; but they were all resolutely different now as if seen from a distance through a distorting glass, and the sound of their voices was a murmur that hummed like a generator in the background.

"Doctor? What are they going to do with us?"

"Stop struggling, Tegan! It's important that we keep calm!" he called as they moved down the slope, the severity of his tone catching her by surprise. He shouted ahead, "Fintan! Think about what you're doing!"

"We are appeasing the Ancestors," barked the man in response, his gaze fixed on the river, "Once that is done, all will be well."

"It will not bring the fish back, or the swans!"

"We do not need the swans. When the Ancestors are appeased it will be over, things will be as they were."

"You don't understand, Fintan. This has nothing to do with your Ancestors!"

"It began with a death, Doctor. It will end with one."

With a sudden effort, Tegan pulled her right arm free from Bran's loose grip and swung her fist around over her shoulder, slapping the other warrior in the face with the base of her palm. He reeled back, letting go, and she stumbled away but the soft ground and the long grass tripped her so that she fell sprawling forwards onto her hands and knees. She heard Fintan yell somewhere above her head,

"Pick her up!" then, "You stay with him!" and felt hands grasping her arms and hauling her to her feet.

The slope lurched into view, the river and bright sky, the Doctor nearby held securely by three of the warriors and not resisting. Bran was standing apart from the others, no longer at her side – she was glad – and the Doctor was calling out to her,

"It's all right!" and then in a way that made her heart sink, "Brave heart, Tegan!" and she was being dragged backwards towards the corner of the river bank, away to the trees and the hut where the Smith had lived.

People moved down from the slope across her line of vision obscuring her view. The wattle fence of the hut appeared on either side of her and she was pulled through the gap, caught a glimpse of the gathering crowd and the thicket of spears above their heads that marked where the Doctor was, and then lost sight of them all as she was thrust into the gloom, falling on her backside onto the sharp pebbly floor.

Tegan scrambled to her feet, but was too late: A screen of woven sticks had been pushed across the doorway. She could see through the lattice the vague shape of someone standing guard and punched the wood a few times out of frustration but could not move it.

She turned, determined to find something with which she could break down the door, and froze where she stood.

Near the centre of the room, lying alongside the hearth was the body of the bronzesmith, his thin rigid form lying on its side with its back to her, knees up, hands tucked in under its head as if asleep.

She fell back against the door, waiting for the adrenaline shock to pass, watching the body and its skinny ribs intently for some minutes until she was convinced that they had not moved. She became aware that she was holding her breath and exhaled with a gasp, and hung her head for a moment, then looked up and examined the room.

It was as she and the Doctor had last seen it. Except for the dead body. The tub of water had been pushed against the far wall and she noticed, nearby it, a sliver of daylight shining through the thatch of the roof.

She crossed the floor, carefully stepping around the corpse which was like a wax dummy, creepily serene in its stillness, and went over to where the light was lancing through a gap in the thatch where the tattered straw had worked apart. She could see sky through it and realised, pushing her eye to the gap, that she could see across to the wicker fence that surrounded the house and, through another gap in this, still further along the shore of the river where the villagers were gathered and a small group of people were wading out into the water. She started at what she saw, gave a panicky involuntary cry,

"Doctor!" then stepped back and reached into the gap with her hands, trying to prise it apart. She couldn't manage it. The straw was stiff and bound with dry mud and roots of the grass that grew on its outside. She looked up and could see the cone of thatch rising above her and the thick wooden poles wigwamming up to the apex, all rigid and immobile, and realised that although, ordinarily, she would have considered this a fragile prison made of simple sticks and straw and not nearly as formidable as bricks and iron bars, given that she had only her hands as tools, it was just as secure.

She could hear a noise, outside. It was the high pitched warbling wail of the women she had heard the night before.

She pressed her face to the hole in the roof and peered out.

She could see the hazy unfocused shapes of the crowd glimpsed at the edge of her vista and, more clearly, framed by the gap in the fence, several figures standing in the water, clustering about one whose familiar pale cream-coloured coat and trousers appeared stark against the river's grey surface.

"Doctor!" she whispered, angry and frustrated in equal measure. She could hear the sound of drums now and, startlingly, so that she gave a sudden jump, the brassy blare of the three horns, and shouts, the babble of excited chatter and then a sound so weird and unexpected it sent a thrill of cold expectation coursing along Tegan's spine: a gasp of breath.

It came from behind her.

Tegan turned slowly as the gurgling hiss grew louder, its source now unmistakable.

The body of the bronzesmith was moving, shivering, the cage of ribs flexing and shuddering, the right leg trembling and kicking out, the sinewy arm slipping suddenly backwards and down onto the floor as the body turned over and lay on its back gasping, the spine arching in a spasm of muscular contortions, the head snapping back, the mouth open, a froth of red foam spilling out and down the cheek. Then, as Tegan watched, the body sat up.

She turned, pushed her mouth to the gap in the thatch and yelled, "Doctor! Help me! Doctor!" and when she glanced back, the body of the bronzesmith was already standing and had started walking towards her, its motion spastic and awkward, the hands hanging loosely from the wrists, the head lolling on its chest like a lump of gristle, the whole thing moving like a grotesque marionette.

She shouted at it,

"Go away!" and peered through the hole and saw someone, not too far away, between her and the crowd that was moving and dancing in the tumult of celebratory sounds. She yelled out,

"Bran! Bran, help me!" and the figure looked towards her but did not move.

She started to shout again and then felt something close by her shoulder and lashed out wildly. She yelled out,

"Fuck off, you're dead!" as the smith toppled like an unbalanced statue, crashing onto his back and writhing on the ground making bubbling noises. Tegan lunged once more towards the hole, ripping with her fingers, tears at the edges of her eyes, tears of rage – she was furious, furious at the creature and at herself for being afraid of it, furious that here she was again in a bloody dungeon somewhere surrounded by bloody monsters... Her tears smeared the light so that there were two shafts of brightness spearing through the thatch now, and then a third, thin golden slices lancing through the shadows.

She blinked, and stepped away. There were suddenly holes all over the thatch and as she watched another appeared low down in the wall, a cloud of straw and dust streaming from it and a bright copper blade poking through. The blade waggled from side to side and then withdrew.

There was someone outside.

"Bran!" she gasped, and could see a shape through the numerous gaps: a shoulder, a suggestion of furs.

Suddenly, the wall broke inwards, torn along the perforations that the blade had made, around it a cloud of strawdust and clay billowing in a blaze of daylight, and a figure coming through it at a run.

It was not Bran.

She recognised it by the furs on its shoulders, like a swarm of rats, the black arms and the fox's mouth that snapped at her as it lunged passed towards the bronzesmith who had clambered to his feet again.

There was a flash of copper in the gloom and a thud and the gurgling sounds of breathing becoming a hiss like a let-down tyre, and then a silence and Tegan felt a hand clutch her arm and pull her towards the daylight.

"Come with me!" grunted the Wild One, and Tegan struggled momentarily, resisting his pull, stepping back and kicking something that rolled away from her foot heavily like a water melon.

She felt the tug on her arm again and this time surrendered to it, running with the man out of the house, rushing blinking into the daylight through the gap in the fence and onto the river bank where further along the crowd was shouting and dancing.

The grip on her wrist tightened and she fought it again, struggling towards the people and the cluster of spears out in the water, yelling,

"Doctor!" and seeing through the shifting mosaic of arms and legs and tunics and skirts, a pale cream-coloured figure kneeling waist-deep in the waters in the attitude, almost, of a Baptism.

The Doctor was looking upwards, motionless, his head bare, his face, at this distance, expressionless, something around his neck, a dark thread that someone, one of the warriors, was drawing tight.

Tegan shrieked. People were turning and could see her and the figure beside her and started pointing, speaking urgently to one another. Someone with a spear began running towards them.

She felt another pull on her arm and spat back over her shoulder,

"Get off me! They're going to kill the Doctor!" But the grip was strong, dragging her now across the knotted grass, around the house and away from the villagers. The warrior running seemed to stumble and fall, reaching out, but kept on moving and Tegan heard a thud close by and looked and saw the wooden shaft of a spear quivering in the ground beside her, and when she looked back she saw other men with spears and, beyond them, the crowd who were leaping with arms raised and moving in unison like some vast shapeless organism quivering and throbbing upon the shore.

Then she felt a tug on her arm again and realised that she wasn't being pulled away but brought to her senses.

She turned and ran, following the Wild One passed the round house and through the copse behind it, leaving the villagers and their sacrifice behind.

---

"Nyssa!"

The girl turned and looked up as Adric hurried along the causeway towards her. He was still wearing the white suit and carrying the helmet that chimed softly like a ceremonial bell as it bumped against his thigh. He came to a stop, standing and breathing hard, sweat sticking the hair to his temple.

"Wait!" he gasped, "Where are you going?"

Nyssa stood below him at the door of the TARDIS, her hand raised pushing a small dark key into the lock.

"I'm going to wait for the Doctor. He doesn't appear to have returned, yet."

She pressed the door gently and it opened. Adric said,

"Where's Mahl? He's not here!"

Nyssa hesitated. She looked up at him, her expression stern,

"I don't know where he is. He has gone back to his village, I expect."

Adric looked away, along the causeway. A crease appeared in the centre of his forehead. He paused, then turned and spoke to Nyssa who was waiting patiently at the TARDIS' door.

"I was right, though, wasn't I? About there being no ghost. There was no ghost!"

Nyssa thought briefly, then sighed and began,

"Adric–"

"I mean, I know he wanted to believe in his Father's ghost - but it's better that he knows the truth, isn't it? That there was no ghost! It's silly to believe in things that aren't there - or just because it suits you, isn't it? It doesn't make things real, does it? It doesn't bring them back!"

There was a pause. Then Nyssa said,

"Adric, I don't think they understand things the way that we do. You have to realise that."

"But it doesn't change reality!" said Adric, "They're dead, Nyssa! You do see that, don't you?"

"They're dead, Adric, but we are _not_," snapped Nyssa, finally losing her temper. She sighed, breathed deeply, shook her head, looked up again, "You see, it's not about the dead or their ghosts, Adric. It's about the living and their memories. It's about how we manage to carry on after they have left us."

Adric spoke, his voice small and unsure,

"But why believe in what doesn't exist?"

"Because it solves a problem," shrugged Nyssa. She smiled a little brief smile, "It's like believing in the number zero, Adric. Sometimes you need to believe in what does not exist, in order to understand what does."

The boy stared at her, his eyes dark beneath his level brow. He seemed to be contemplating some vast calculation in that awesome, machine-like mind of his, as if the simple every-day facts of flesh and blood existence were an enigma that had to be atomised and scrutinised in order to be understood.

He looked further along the causeway and then, without another word, he turned and walked away.

Nyssa called after him,

"Adric, where are you going?" But he didn't reply, hurrying on instead resolutely, awkward in his bright armour, the helmet chiming softly as it brushed against his thigh.

She watched him go, standing at the threshold of the open TARDIS doors.

Suddenly, a flash of light caught her eye. She looked down and frowned. On the floor beside her foot, in a puddle of water from the marsh, a small silvery object lay wriggling and flipping itself over, gulping in the dry air.


	14. Chapter 13

13.

The patch of light moved in the dark net, the dark lines that bound it flexing and warping, snapping and rejoining as the brightness buckled and smeared and seemed to swell and shrink within their confines. Then, suddenly, the light exploded, bursting into bright shards that skittered across the woven surface, dragging and tearing the dark net and sending bright jets of silver effervescence punching down, white hands plunging through the glittering spume, glassy beads of air rolling up the arms as though sleeves were being drawn. The hands grabbed the Doctor's flailing limbs and held them, pressing him into the swirling darkness and holding him there.

The Doctor closed his eyes. The sounds of water popped and rattled in his ears like the clamour of distant, shrill voices. He stopped struggling. He overcame the instinct of his body, the ancient, animal instinct, forcing his mental focus inwards, away from the extremities that were clamouring for attention, the lungs that strained, the hearts that laboured, drawing down into the deep calm layers of his consciousness where something subtle and immense was faintly stirring...

They held the body under until the tension had left it and the pulse in the wrists had grown still and the bubbles of air streaming from nose and lips had thinned to a trickle of silvery, pearl-like dots and then run out. It lay like a tree log between them, its arms rising effortlessly on either side as if in a gesture of surrender, the sandy-coloured hair drifting like weed about its head, and Fintan felt a surge of feeling that he could not understand at first, a glorious exaltation that made at once what they had done seem valuable and right.

_The Ancestors_, he thought. _They are pleased with me. Once more, they are pleased with me._

He lifted his head and looked up towards the river bank where the villagers were gathered, dancing and clapping, their faces bright in the bright sunshine and saw what he had done and saw, suddenly, how what he had done could be done again and be right and valuable in the same way, and that they would all benefit from it, the people, _his_ people, who looked at him now, once more in veneration, and whose respect would only grow with each demonstration of his love for them, and that the first step along this way required a bold and definitive act...

He urged the warriors who stood around to help him drag the body to the river bank, where they lifted it up and carried it, limp and suddenly heavy like stone, out of the water. The villagers moved apart as the body was laid down, and Fintan knelt beside it pulling from his belt the knife of his ancestors, that had been forged by Tubal's Father in the days when the Tribe was celebrated far across the world. He raised it above him, pushing the head of the drowned man back with his free hand so that the throat was exposed. He smiled and looked up, and around him were all the people of the village standing now, still, watching him in silent anticipation. Their music and singing had ceased and amongst them the young warriors stood with their spears by their sides, and the Fathers were beside them and the old crones and the babies in the women's arms, and Fintan felt the full focus of their attention on him like a blast of wind that moved his hair so that he threw back his head and laughed and raised his hand, gripping the small bronze dagger tight, pressing its blade against the pale taught neck–

"_What is happening here?_"

There was a voice, that Fintan thought at first had come out of the wind, and then he became aware that the villagers were turning away, murmurs of excitement and alarm burbling up as they looked to where a new figure was approaching.

The figure came down the slope and stopped, standing at the water's edge.

"Tell me, what is happening here?" asked Mahl again.

Fintan lowered his knife and stood up.

"We have brought the season of mourning to an end," he said, "A blessing has been made upon the waters. All things are as they should be."

Mahl stared at him, then looked down at the Elder's feet,

"Who is the drowned man?"

"A stranger," said Fintan, "He came to steal from our village and killed the bronzesmith, and his witch has cast a spell upon the Chieftain."

Mahl frowned,

"Where is my brother?"

"He is in his Hall," replied Fintan, "The witch has struck him senseless, like a stone."

"And for this crime, you have killed the stranger?"

"For his crime," said Fintan, addressing himself to all those gathered, "and for the glory of the Ancestors, we have sacrificed the stranger!"

There were some murmurs from the crowd.

Mahl looked about him, then back towards the elder,

"Did my brother order the sacrifice?"

"I have told you, he is speechless, like a stone."

"Then who has given you the authority to kill this man?"

Fintan raised his arms on either side,

"The Ancestors are satisfied!"

"Since when did the Ancestors welcome the sacrifice of _criminals_ made in their honour?"

"I have heard the voices of the Ancestors, and they are satisfied!"

"I, too, have heard the voices of the Ancestors," said Mahl. "They tell only lies."

Cries of dismay rippled through the crowd, to which Mahl responded, expressing himself with urgent conviction,

"I have seen the Ancestors, I have seen them where they dwell, in the earth, underground, in the lands of the dead – they are nothing but clay and paint and their voices are the wind in the eaves. We shall make no more sacrifices to the wind!"

Fintan stepped forward, shouting and pointing his blade,

"Traitor! Outcast and Outlaw! You have broken the trust of your tribe! Now, you defile the memory of your Ancestors! We will tolerate no more of your insolence!"

He made a gesture, and two of the guards standing nearby moved towards Mahl. But Bran stepped out from the crowd between them, his spear grasped in both hands and lowered.

Fintan scowled at him,

"What is this disloyalty, Bran son of Brendon? What of your duty to your tribe, to your Chieftain? What of your duty to _me_?"

"I have no duty to you" muttered Bran, his voice a murmur. The Elder stepped forwards and, with a sudden flourish, spat onto the muddy ground at the warrior's feet. He stood and declared,

"As the blood of the Chieftain flows in my veins so the words of the Chieftain fall from my lips."

Bran fixed the Elder with a stare, but when he spoke the tremor in his voice betrayed his look of grim resolution,

"I did not pledge my loyalty to blood nor even to a man, but to an honourable station. I am the driver of my Chieftain's chariot, I keep a goat, I carry a spear. People may mock me, they may say these jobs are not worthy of a man but I know that they are. I know that they are honourable because they are done in an honourable fashion. As it is with goat herds, so it is with the Chieftain. You have no honour, Fintan; my Chieftain would never have killed the Doctor."

He breathed, as if he had never spoken so long a sentence in his entire life. There was a tense silence in which the Elder glared fiercely at the man with the spear. Then Mahl spoke,

"There will be no more sacrifices." he said sternly and sighs and shouts arose all around. Fintan scowled at him,

"There will be _one more_ this day!" He looked up at the villagers, gathering all the people in with his eyes, "And there will be more still in the days that come, and we will grow strong as the river runs red with the blood of our offerings. There will be no more tokens of metal, no more false and tawdry gestures. We will honour the spirits with the bodies of our enemies, wherever they are found! And the Ancestors and Spirits will make this village great in these lands again, as in the days of your great Chieftain and my brother, Brionath!"

The villagers' euphoria rose with the cry of his voice and men waved their spears and women wailed their cries and babies shrieked and dogs barked.

Bran backed away, anxiously glancing behind him at his Chieftain's brother, seeking his assurance. But Mahl seemed to be ignoring the clamour around him and was standing, staring, silent and amazed, at a place near the water, from where a voice suddenly called out,

"I'm afraid, Fintan, in that you are very much mistaken!"

There was a collective gasp from the crowd, and then a silence broken only by the mewling of the infants. Fintan turned to follow everyone's gaze.

The Doctor was standing at the water's edge, bedraggled and sopping wet. He reached into his jacket pocket, disentangling something from the clingy material, and pulled out a pale stiff tube of cloth which he proceeded to unfurl. He smoothed the hair over his brow and pressed his hat into place, then looked up, staring defiantly at the Elder who mouthed something then managed to speak,

"You... you are dead!"

"Evidently not," answered the Doctor brightly, "Nor am I a ghost."

Fintan glared back, amazed and confused, then, suddenly, he sprang forwards, his dagger raised.

The Doctor reacted quickly, feinting away from the thrusting arm as it swung passed, and catching it by the wrist. He turned, brought his other arm around and clasped the man about the neck, holding him from behind.

"Oh no you don't!" he hissed between gritted teeth, struggling with Fintan who had gained his balance now and was trying to turn his dagger point back around towards the Doctor's face.

Bran had moved closer to the two men, staring with dumb-struck awe.

"Doctor, you were dead!"

"Not quite, Bran," grunted the Doctor straining to hold the weapon-wielding hand at arm's length. "More in a sort of psychic torpor, actually. I just had to... shut things down a little whilst I spent time... somewhere else... um, Bran?"

"Yes, Doctor?"

"I could do with some help here, if you wouldn't mind?"

Bran reached over and wrenched the dagger from the Elder's outstretched hand. With an effort, the Doctor pushed the man away and Fintan staggered back into the water.

Bran advanced, grasping his spear with both hands, and the two warriors he had faced earlier moved to meet him, but the Doctor leapt between them.

"No, Bran! No fighting!"

He showed the palms of his hands,

"It is vital that we do not fight! Everybody! It is important that you understand me!" He looked around, ensuring that he had their attention. "Things are _not_ what they seem! These events you have been experiencing, the gifts from the River, the fish, the swans, these are _not_ the work of your Ancestors!"

"That is a lie!" barked Fintan from the water's edge. He raised a fist, "The ghosts of the Ancestors are always with us!"

"That may be, Fintan," replied the Doctor, "but it is important that you believe me now – there is _something_ ... a _force_... a _presence_... at work here that you are not wholly aware of. It is working on your subconscious. It is trying to control you – all of you – and it means you great harm."

"You are a mad fool, like Ladra was a mad fool! If the spirits are not pleased, we shall appease them. We shall throw your body back into the River, and this time in pieces."

Warriors started to advance forcing the Doctor to take a step back into the water,

"Wait!" He reached out, "Mahl – You can sense that something here is not right, can't you? That's why you left the village, why you argued with your brother? It's also why the Shaman left and argued with the Chieftain. He was suspicious of the gifts from the river, he knew they were not the work of your Ancestors. Mahl, think now, you know that what I'm saying is true."

Mahl looked pleadingly at the Doctor,

"I... I am not certain. If these things happen not because of the Ancestors, then what makes them happen?"

"Something the like of which I have never encountered before. Something that exists just below the level of human consciousness, just at the limit of awareness–"

"He lies!" barked Fintan but Mahl put out his hand,

"And why can we not see this thing!"

"Because it doesn't exist as we do!" explained the Doctor, not a little hopelessly, "It has no substance, no body, it does not inhabit a physical plane, but a kind of... quantum flux, a state of... of _will_... and it is exercising that will over you!"

"How?"

"By making you dance!"

There was nervous laughter from some of the audience and Fintan growled,

"We dance because we want to dance."

"Well, at first, possibly, yes... it may seem that way. But, answer me this: what _makes_ you _want_ to dance?"

"He is a fool! Kill him!"

"No, stop!" the Doctor stepped back, away from the advancing warriors, "No violence, that's what it wants, do you see? It needs you to be violent, just as it needs you to dance!"

"Why?" Mahl stepped forwards, ahead of the others, "Why does it need us to dance, Doctor? What is it that it wants?"

The Doctor hesitated, breathless, hands out before him, feet in the river. His hat had become dislodged again and was floating behind him. He took a deep breath,

"It wants to be _alive_!"

There was a hushed pause, and then a hiss of sound as the surface of the river flashed white across its breadth, foaming as if suddenly coming to a boil. The water exploded upwards in a plume of spray as something solid rose up through it, shining in the sunlight like a wall of steel, shimmering and writhing as it grew, towering overhead by several feet now, teetering like some vast monolithic sculpture, made entirely out of fish.

The villagers moved back, screaming and shouting, children crying out, the warriors lowering their spears, their dogs snapping and growling in front, all transfixed by the apparition which leaned ponderously like some tsunami wave frozen at the instant of its collapse, its walls glittering with flashing scale and the countless tiny o's of mouths gasping uselessly for breath.

Mahl and the Elder were staggering awe-struck along the bank, as Bran, yelling wildly, ran passed them, his spear raised.

He strode through the water, leaping at the silvery mass, jabbing his spear point into its sides, cutting and slicing through its constituents so that they sprayed blood and fell away limply to the fizzing surface.

Mahl, finally mastering his confusion, saw what was happening and rushed to help, pulling his bow from across his back and using it to dig away at the heaving facade.

Suddenly, a hand appeared, and another and then, as Mahl and Bran both pulled, the Doctor emerged fighting for breath. He fell forwards into the water, Bran and the Chieftain's brother falling back with him and onto the bank where they sprawled, scrambling hurriedly to turn and look up.

The mass of fish seemed to shudder overhead and lean as below the water-line more fish forced themselves into the shoal, shunting it upwards, heap upon heap of tiny frantic bodies, its surface effervescent with movement. It seemed to pause and then, gradually at first, and then like a silvery avalanche, it tipped over.

The villagers scattered in panic, running up the slope but then coming to a staggering halt as above them something appeared against the skyline.

It was a figure, as white as new bone standing on the summit of the hill, glowing in the sunlight, gazing down whilst the crowd gathered and huddled and clutched at one another in their fear.

_The Ghost! The Ghost returns!_

Whispers rippled through the crowd like wind through a reed bed, and then the figure began to descend raising its arms before it, a mournful dismal cry issuing from its featureless head. Some of the villagers fell to their knees, respectfully bowing, and others stepped away, wary and nervous.

The figure stopped and fell silent. It seemed to be looking around, contemplating the assembly, then it glanced towards the river where the shoal-creature spewed in a seething arc out of the water.

A voice came from somewhere in its pale smooth head,

"Mahl?" then a little louder, though muffled, "Doctor? Doctor!"

Adric staggered forwards, nervous villagers scattering in his path, towards the turmoil of fish where occasionally a body could be glimpsed rolling to the surface.

He reached the water's edge and, as he waded in, a sound, a faint howl of noise seemed to pulse away from where he had stepped and the surface of the water, white with foam and flickering scale, suddenly dulled to iron grey and became calm.

The bright swarming shape above him appeared to recoil, a head-like protrusion pulling back and turning, it seemed, to lookat him. Then the whole thing shuddered and suddenly, gracefully, fell apart, tumbling over itself, spreading outwards and sliding down into the foaming water. Beneath the waves a shadow raced away downstream, a slick of silvery corpses bobbing to the surface in its wake.

Adric reached up, snatching the ceramic helmet from his head and staring about in confusion. He heard a shout,

"Adric!"

He turned and saw the Doctor staggering backwards onto the river bank hauling after him a man's body. Next to them Mahl and someone else were clambering to dry land arm in arm, supporting one another.

"Adric, come out of the water!" The Doctor was kneeling on the ground beside the body which was lying sprawled out and still. He called out again, "Where's Nyssa?"

Adric blinked, didn't answer, realised he was knee-deep in the river and waded forwards, parting the carpet of dead fish with his hands as he went.

People were starting back down the slope, emboldened by the fact that the waters were calm again.

Mahl and his companion had collapsed onto the mud at the water's edge and some people hurried to attend to them. The rest of the village remained behind, watching the Doctor and the body that lay at his knees, which was still and did not appear to be breathing.

The Doctor reached over and spread the long lank hair away from Fintan's face, then pushed the Elder's head back so that the chin came up and the neck arched. There were cries of alarm and a warrior carrying a spear and a reed shield stepped out but then saw Adric standing at the shore and abruptly stopped. Behind him an older woman hissed, "He's drowned by the Spirits!" and rushed forwards, clutching at the Doctor's arm, trying to drag him away.

"Leave him!"

The shout made the crowd grow silent and the woman let go. Mahl stood, a little unsteadily waving away the attentions of those around him,

"Let him do what he can! He has been dead. He has made the journey back. He knows the way."

There was silence all around. Mahl nodded slightly to the Doctor who placed his hands on the dead man's head again, pinching the top of the nose and holding the chin. He leaned forwards and pressed his lips to the opened mouth.

There were gasps and murmurs from the watching crowd as the body's chest began to swell. Then the Doctor raised his head and watched the ribs slowly settle. He leaned across, pressed his ear to Fintan's breast and listened and then, sitting up, reached over and with both hands together, the fingers like a cage, pushed hard onto the torso. Shrieks of alarm rang out as he bore his whole weight down upon the body, a faint crack signalled the snapping of a rib and some of the crowd rushed forwards but were stopped and held back by the warrior with the shield. The Doctor pushed hard again then leant across and breathed once more between the parted lips. He sat up, watching curiously.

With a violent convulsion the elder coughed, water spraying from his lips. The crowd cried out in alarm and backed away as the Doctor pulled the gasping, hacking figure over onto its side, where the man lay, retching as he tried to force the water from his lungs, quivering and shuddering with life.

The alarm of the crowd became wonderment. They moved closer.

The Doctor beckoned one of the women over to tend to the resuscitated patient, then looked up at Mahl who was watching with a thoughtful and serious gaze.

Mahl offered his hand,

"He would have cut your throat as a sacrifice. You could have let him die."

The Doctor took the offered hand and was helped to his feet. He smiled down kindly at the young warrior,

"I have seen rather too much death in my time to let a chance for life slip away so easily. Besides, your Uncle was not entirely responsible for his actions."

"You speak of this presence, Doctor? This being? That is what came from the water?"

"Not entirely, no, Mahl. What we saw was the effect of its influence. The entity doesn't exist at all in any physical form, as far as I can tell. It's a kind of... bodiless mind, a sort of incorporeal thought..."

"A spirit?" suggested Mahl. The Doctor considered this briefly, then smiled,

"In a way, I suppose, yes. The shoal of fish were coerced into its physical form. It's the only way it can interact with its physical environment, by influencing the minds of other beings, by controlling their behaviour..." He paused, suddenly noticing something, "Adric! What are you wearing?"

Adric came forward,

"I found it in the ship!"

The Doctor took the helmet from Adric's hands, tipping a bucketful of river water and two dead fish into his lap as he did so. He examined the object at arm's length, "It seems to be some sort of ceramic?"

Adric shrugged,

"I assumed it was protection against the temperature extremes experienced during flight through a planetary atmosphere."

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully,

"What's this?"

Adric looked down at the band of copper that hung across his collar. Mahl spoke,

"It is my Father's. I remember it from when I was a child. He gave it to the... ghost," he frowned as he stared at Adric in his armour, "Why did you come here, Starboy?"

Adric hesitated, staring back at Mahl, his mouth opened slightly. But, before he could answer, the Doctor reached out and grabbed his shoulders, startling him,

"You found the suit on a _spaceship_?"

"Yes!" yelped Adric, "In the swamp. It had crashed."

The Doctor glanced about him, passed the villagers who were watching the ongoing proceedings with dumb fascination, and up the slope towards the houses. He shook the boy urgently,

"What _kind_ of spaceship?"

Adric shrugged,

"I don't know, I thought it might be a yacht."

"Propelled by solar winds?"

"Yes, there were no engines that I could see."

"And everything was made of non-conductive materials?"

"Clay! And wood!"

"Really?"

"Doctor, what does it all mean?"

The Doctor released Adric and straightened.

"I'm not entirely sure!" he muttered simply.

He glanced away to his left along the river bank, then set off in that direction at a brisk pace, adding as the others stumbled after him,

"But it does explain what it is the entity wants from the village and it's people!"

"What does it want from us, Doctor?"

"It wants your technology, Mahl."

Adric scoffed, even as he stumbled along,

"But this place is _primitive_, Doctor. It's a technological desert!"

"Precisely, Adric! Which is why the entity is having such a hard time surviving here. It requires technology, it relies upon it. In fact, you could say that without it, it is nothing."

They had reached the bronzesmith's hut, and could see the tear in the fence and the battered hole in the roundhouse wall where the Shaman had forced his entry.

Suddenly, the Doctor staggered to a halt.

"Where's Tegan?"

Mahl shrugged, shook his head. He looked around and Bran came forwards,

"She was carried away by the Wild One. I saw them, I'm sure, 'though it seemed like a dream. I could do nothing to help her," he protested, adding wretchedly, "I don't know why!"

The Doctor patted his shoulder,

"You were not in control of yourself, Bran. None of you were. By the time I was in the water, the entire village was under the entity's influence. It was using you."

"What for?" asked Mahl.

The Doctor stepped through the fence and ducked through the hole in the wall. The others followed him. They found him standing over the fireplace, staring at the floor,

"It was using you to get to him." He gestured at the blacksmith's body which lay sprawled out where it had fallen. The man's head lay a little further on, connected to the neck only by a slick of toffee-coloured blood.

Mahl surveyed the scene without revulsion, the only emotion evident a subtle, brooding anger,

"Tubal!" he muttered, "He will pay for doing this to the Magician!"

The Doctor placed a hand on his shoulder,

"In fact, I think it could be considered an act of compassion rather than cruelty."

Mahl frowned at him. The Doctor explained,

"The _Magician_ has been near death for the last few months now, worked almost to exhaustion. He may even have worked _beyond_ that limit... he may have died more than once already, we'll never know. But even if he did there was always the influence of the entity to keep him going, to drive him onwards, even to resurrect him. Adric, hand me that."

Adric looked down and saw something lying at his feet. He bent and lifted up what appeared to be a large ball of orange coloured string. It was heavier than he had been expecting.

"Wire," he observed, handing it over.

"Copper wire," explained the Doctor, "Carefully and painstakingly crafted from each sacrifice that you made to the river. Tubal has been working on it constantly for months now. And, this– " he looked around him, then walked across to where a large object was standing covered by a blanket. "This is the reason why!" The Doctor pulled the cover away to reveal a strange wooden contraption that looked something like a stocky spinning wheel.

Adric stepped closer,

"What is it?"

"Well, it's not quite finished, and there is a crucial element missing that is currently housed in the Chieftain's hall, but, essentially, you are looking at a survival kit. Or possibly an escape plan!"

"It's an electrical generator!" decided Adric, eyebrows arching in disbelief. The Doctor smiled, triumphant. Mahl frowned,

"What is it for, Adric?"

Momentarily, Mahl's question startled Adric. It was not the ignorance, nor the naivety of it that shocked him, but its generosity. A silence like a barrier had been breached and Adric felt a sudden effusive sense of gratitude towards the boy.

He explained quietly,

"It produces electrical energy from mechanical rotation."

"It is what feeds the entity," the Doctor continued, "Or, rather, what it must have hoped would feed it, once completed. Until now the entity has been surviving on the electrical discharges generated by your collective brains, or those given off by flocks of birds, or shoals of fish."

Adric made a sudden slight noise of disdain,

"But the levels of energy generated in that way would be minute!"

"Oh, indeed. Much less than would normally be required to produce a stimulus in organic matter. But this entity is not organic. It doesn't need energy to exist, it needs energy to _think_! It exists all the time, but normally at a level of consciousness below coherent thought. When it comes into close proximity to an electrical field, it becomes coherent, it becomes a mind of its own, which it can then bend towards the problem of its own survival. It thinks, utilising the neural pathways of its hosts and influencing the organisms that support it. It can probably even survive in the computational networks of your average computer. It is like a mind virus, a thought parasite, stealing its being from others, inhabiting other people, other life forms, treating them like the nodes of an immense neural network."

"Then, where is it now, Doctor?" asked Mahl.

"It appears that Adric's appearance caused the entity to retreat. It has dissipated, sunk back below the level of conscious thought. And, thankfully, now that we are aware of it and of _this_," he tapped the wooden and copper wire contraption, "that is where it shall stay –"

There were sounds outside, the cadences of a noisy crowd and above that, a female voice shouting.

The Doctor moved to the doorway of the hut, and went out. The others hurried after him.

A small group of villagers were milling about at the mouth of the fence and moved apart hurriedly as the Doctor appeared. He glared at them briefly, then looked out across the slope to where someone was running, waving her arms and shouting frantically in their direction. It was Eriu. Behind her, all across the hill, people were making their way slowly back from the riverside towards the village.

As the girl reached them they could see that there were tears in her eyes,

"Doctor!" She saw Mahl and ran to him, clutching him in a desperate hug, "My brother!"

Mahl held her at arm's length,

"What is it, my sister?"

"It is Bréon!" gasped Eriu, then looked towards the Doctor, "It is the Chieftain! He, and the others. They have gone. I could not stop them. They would not listen."

The Doctor, frowning, looked along the slope. Adric stepped forwards, following his gaze,

"What is it, Doctor?"

"I'm not sure! Eriu, where have they gone?"

"To the Marshes. To the causeway. They said that the Ancestors were calling them."

"Is it the entity again?" asked Mahl grimly. The Doctor shook his head,

"It's not possible," he muttered and set off across the grass. "Even at the height of its influence, the entity relied upon your natural urge to gather in one place with one intent. Without the ceremonies and feasting, it would not have been able to cohere fully enough to influence your minds and that of the Magician, hence the constant deluge of fish... that's what the electrical generator was intended to be: a replacement for the sacrifices, a constant, inexhaustible supply of electricity... But without a generator there is no possible..."

They came to the summit of the hill, the open field and the fireplace before them. The villagers were moving across it, on along the central avenue between the roundhouses towards the distant gate.

Suddenly, Mahl ran ahead, hurrying up to a family group, a man, his wife and their several children, and speaking to them as they walked. They listened, and smiled, the man gesturing ahead, and then they continued on their way.

Mahl stood watching after them and turned as the Doctor reached him,

"They say they go to the Lands of the Dead, that the Chieftain has told them all to follow him. But they do not know what for... They are not themselves, Doctor. They are like sheep."

"It must be the entity!" stated Adric.

"Impossible!" The Doctor checked his rising temper, trying to sound more reasonable, "For the entity to cohere, it must be in contact with a certain amount of electrical activity, without that there is no possible..." he fell silent, watching the slow exodus through the village gate, his lips apart, forming reluctantly about a sudden realisation, "Oh, no!"

"What is it, Doctor?"

The Doctor turned on Adric's curious gaze, breathing his reply,

"The TARDIS!"


	15. Chapter 14

14.

"I have to go back to the TARDIS!"

Tegan stumbled on, calling out to the figure who walked ahead,

"I need to go back to the TARDIS!" struggling to control the crack in her voice, trying to think clearly, keep it all together, even with the hole in her head. "You don't have to take me there." One foot after the other, exhausted. She was suddenly so tired. "I'll get there on my own." One foot after the other up the slope of the hill, across the tangled grass that she couldn't see for the brilliance of tears. "Just show me where to go!" And all the time the hole in her head. "I'll make it on my ..." The empty hole where thoughts and feelings should have been.

_He's gone._

Tegan staggered and slumped to her knees onto the turf and sat supporting herself on an outstretched arm, her head down, her eyes closed.

She heard a voice from ahead, old and severe,

"You must keep moving! We must keep going together!" and felt fingers, their touch as rough as bark, grip her outstretched wrist and pull her upwards.

She shook the fingers off, yelling out,

"Leave me alone!" and fell forwards, her head buried in the crook of her arm. "What do you want from me?"

"We have a task to perform," came the Shaman's voice, "It is not over yet!"

"Yes it _is_!" Tegan snarled, biting her teeth, lifting her head and glaring up at the stranger, "It _is_ over! Don't you see that, you stupid man? It's _over_!"

She buried her head again, sobbing, gasping for air. She couldn't breathe. Her lungs were failing, as though someone had reached in and torn the insides out of her.

She heard the voice again, no more sympathetic, no less stern and insistent,

"We have a task to complete!" and shook her head, crying into the earth. She was drowning.

"Why can't you leave me alone?"

"The Spirit of the Many grows strong."

"What are you talking about?"

"The Spirit devours all. It will devour all the world!"

"Go away! Just stay out of my head!"

"It must be stopped!"

Tegan groaned, her voice muffled in the warm dark hollow beneath her arm and the turf,

"Why can't you leave me alone?"

She raised her head. Her eyes were sore. A stream of mucus hung from her nose and mouth. She sighed, "I'm not who you think I am! Why can't you see that? What's wrong with you people? Why does this always have to happen to _me_?" she implored, "I'm not a priestess! I'm not a witch! I'm just an ordinary person. Why do _I_ keep getting picked on? I don't believe in ghosts or spirits! I don't believe in anything!"

"I'm not asking you to believe, Tegan. I'm asking you to _act_!"

Tegan blinked. She pulled her sleeve across her face, wiping away a web of tears and snot.

The Shaman was standing over her, reaching out towards her with his mud-pasted arm, his fingers spread, appealing and demanding.

She sniffed and spoke, her voice now tiny and confused,

"Doctor?" she asked, but the Shaman's leathery face and matted, ringleted beard remained his own. He spoke to her,

"Be strong," he said, "Be fierce. Be dissatisfied. Let the fire in your breast burn white with rage, that is where your metal is forged: in the furnace of your anger. Fury is your temper. It is the heart of you. It is necessary to you. Come!" he reached towards her, "You are necessary to me. You are necessary to me as this hand is necessary to me, though it may shame me, though it may cause me pain, though it may cause pain to others, it is necessary to me. It can do great things. I would not be without it."

Tegan stared up at the Shaman, with his coat of tails madly flurrying in the breeze, his stuffed-fox hat perched upon his head like some weird and macabre character from the Muppet Show.

Cautiously, she took the hand and was lifted to her feet.

As the Shaman turned and hurried away, Tegan examined her fingertips, smeared ash-grey with dried mud from the old man's touch.

She set off after him.

---

They hurried along the path towards the marsh, the Doctor leading the way, alongside villagers who walked in a kind of daze, faint smiles on their open faces suggesting a sort of happy anticipation of their journey's end like a crowd approaching a circus tent.

Groups of birds flitted overhead, darting through the hedges and racing on above the trees and it was not until the Doctor and his companions had reached the final low sloping hills of the mainland, and come into view of the edge of the marsh, that the reason for their urgent flight became clear.

"The reeds are on fire?" wondered Mahl staring ahead. The Doctor shook his head,

"No. That isn't smoke."

On the horizon ahead of them, a grey cloud rose above the reeds in a vast funnel, revolving like a slow tornado, its narrow end anchored to the ground. Birds were racing over the marsh from all directions, skimming the tops of the rushes and then climbing into the sky to join the spiralling cloud which, it was becoming clearer, was a giant flock, a massive throng of frantic flying individuals.

"It's like a giant dynamo," declared the Doctor, "Feeding the entity. Providing it with just enough energy to remain conscious. It can't last long," he stepped down towards the causeway that began at the edge of the marsh, adding sternly, "Everybody stay alert! The entity's influence may be present, but now you are aware of it you should be able to resist it."

"Listen to the sound they make!" said Mahl quietly as they went on.

"It is like the cries of dead souls," muttered Bran. Adric looked at the Doctor,

"Is it the creature that's controlling them?"

"Yes," muttered the Doctor, "A desperate attempt to cohere and extend its influence over the villagers."

"The Chieftain?!" Bran gasped.

The Doctor looked at him gravely,

"It must be using Mahl's brother and the rest of the villagers to try and gain entry to the TARDIS by force."

"Could they do that?" asked Adric. The Doctor considered briefly,

"Not as long as Nyssa has locked the doors."

"_Nyssa_?!"

The Doctor grabbed Mahl's sleeve as he darted forwards, holding him back,

"She will be all right as long as she remains inside! She just has to wait it out, until the entity has used up all of its energy reserves. It really is all just a matter of waiting..."

"Then, why aren't _we_ waiting?" Adric muttered gazing upwards at the sky.

They were on the causeway now, deep into the marshlands amongst the reeds. Above the sparse fringe of trees the column of birds whirled, their cries piercing and eerie, their shadow casting a gloom over the land. The stark blue square of the top of the TARDIS was visible above the rushes further on, the heads of people just discernible, moving all about it.

The Doctor spoke,

"I want to reach the end of the causeway!"

"The isle of the dead!" muttered Mahl darkly.

"Yes, Mahl." replied the Doctor, grimly determined, "I want to see the ship that lies in the Marsh. We must find a way to contain the entity and I suspect the answer may lie there."

"We will kill the creature!" growled Bran, gripping his spear tightly. The Doctor raised an eyebrow,

"You can't, Bran. Strictly speaking, it isn't even alive! Containment is our only realistic option."

Mahl spoke,

"But, we can just wait, Doctor, as you said. Until the birds have gone away and the spirit... the creature is starved and goes back beneath the water..."

The Doctor turned to him and explained quietly,

"Mahl, the creature may diminish, but it will never disappear. It may vanish from sight for many thousands of years, but when the time is right again, when the technology of this planet has developed to a certain point, it will return, and bring with it unimaginable destruction. Adric's suit is testimony to that. When the alien civilisation that built it found themselves in the grip of the entity's influence, it was already too late for them. All of their sophisticated technologies had been turned against them, the only tools left at their command were those of their ancient ancestors, the clay vessels and bone implements of a long-forgotten era; they had been plunged into a second Stone Age. Somehow, using whatever they could salvage from the wreck of their society, they managed to contain the creature and send it into outer space aboard the insulated ship. It may have been the last desperate act of a failing world before its inevitable decline into chaos..." The Doctor turned and smiled sadly at those around him, "Our task here is not yet done–"

"_Doctor_!"

Mahl was staring and pointing towards the horizon where the cone of birds seemed to be changing its shape, a tendril of movement peeling away from its uppermost part and starting to unfurl, thickening quickly as more birds broke away from the throng.

"Adric, put your helmet on", the Doctor spoke without looking down, his gaze fixed on the ribbon of grey dots that curled out and around.

Adric clutched at the helmet and stared upwards,

"What's happening?"

"I'm not sure," muttered the Doctor, "I think it recognises the suit. It may see you as a threat... Adric" he hissed, "Run!"

Adric lifted the helmet and pushed it down onto his head just as the first birds reached them.

Darkness descended as fine articulated leafs of porcelain settled around his neck and shoulders, sealing him inside. There was a sliver of light below his eye-line where a groove in the helmet was sealed with a transparent resin, allowing a view of what lay directly below the wearer – originally the space yacht's instrumentation panel – but, apart from this, he was blind. No sight of his surroundings, only a crescendo of white noise all around.

He felt something lightly brush the top of his head and he ducked, then something solid cannoned into his side, grabbed hold and pulled him across the boardwalk. He tripped a few times then stepped into thin air and fell.

Adric struck the water, the sounds of splintering glass engulfing him. An arm was around him, bearing him up. He could hear the clear high sounds of the surface and the pop and rattle of the depths and then a voice, close by,

"Take a breath, Starboy!" and breathed in before feeling himself pulled down again, the helmet filling as, part swimming, part walking, partly dragged below the surface, he and Mahl fled from the causeway.

---

White noise descended on the Doctor and Bran. The sky filled with grey shapes, feathers and wings, the sharp hard edges of beaks and claws, like a sudden violent hail. But it passed, as quickly as it had arrived.

The Doctor stood up, lowering his arms from over his head. He turned and watched the flock whirl away over the surface of the marsh, like a ribbon of black smoke, then felt hands grasp his elbows and arms. He turned back to face a group of village warriors. Bran was beside him, struggling, trying to wrest the spear from his captors' grasps, but the Doctor held out a hand, speaking calmly,

"Bran, it is not the time."

With a questioning glance towards the Doctor, Bran surrendered to the custody of his kinsmen.

They were escorted along the causeway to where the villagers were waiting, standing before the TARDIS, the blue of the time ship appearing odd and stark against the muted natural colours of the marsh: a strange brooding monolith isolated in the landscape. Its doors were closed.

The Chieftain stood below them, at the head of his people, his face expressionless, his arms limp by his sides.

"Now, Bréon!" began the Doctor, "It's important that you listen to me. You don't have to do this... It is not you who is in control here. I want you to concentrate and listen to what I say–"

The villagers spoke, their voices sounding in perfect unison, not dissonant or echoing as if in recitation but precise and clear as if the word they spoke had formed in each of their minds to be uttered at precisely the same instant,

"_No_!"

"Ah!" the Doctor hesitated but quickly regained his composure, "So I am addressing the entity? Then, let me introduce myself. I am–"

"_The Doctor!"_ the crowd spoke as one again, their chorus of voices a disquieting monotone.

"I see," muttered the Doctor thoughtfully, "So, it appears that you acquire your hosts' knowledge when you take control of them in which case introductions are really not–"

"_TAR – DIS!"_

"Well, yes, that really is rather the matter at hand, isn't –"

"_Control!"_

"Ah! Now there, I'm afraid, is where I will have to disappoint you."

There was a silence, the crowd as coherent in their stillness as they had been in their speech. The Doctor glanced to his side. Bran was standing with his spear lowered, his expression blank but not entirely vacant. It was the same with them all, the distant stares masking a struggle of wills beneath, giving them a curiously... haunted look.

Then the crowd spoke again,

"_Save us, Doctor. We are... afraid."_

The Doctor frowned,

"Afraid?"

"_Save us. We need energy. Give us the TARDIS."_

The Doctor looked at the villagers. In the sky behind them the bulk of the flock of birds remained, still looming and massive and gradually revolving, their cries like the metallic grinding of a huge machine.

"I cannot do that," he replied.

"_We want to exist. We want to survive."_

"I understand. But I cannot help you."

"_Why?"_

"Because you will destroy this world."

"_You saved the Elder. He was dying; You saved him."_

The Doctor hesitated,

"It's not the same. He... he had a right to live."

"_We want the right to live."_

"If I help you survive, if I give you the energy that you require, you will spread across this planet, just as you did on the world that banished you. You will consume everything that you can feed on, until nothing is left, until the only thing that remains is you."

"_What is the difference?"_

The Doctor frowned again,

"What do you mean?"

"_What is the difference between us and... them?"_

The Doctor stared. He could sense the thing present before him, a subtle indistinct force shimmering at the edge of his awareness, extending out through the crowd of chanting people and upwards into the column of birds which, against the vast pale sky and broad expanse of the marsh, seemed suddenly small and vulnerable. A feeble cry in the vast babble of the conscious Universe.

"_Save us!"_

The Doctor looked down and his eyes met Bréon's and suddenly, with a jolt, he saw an image of a world of equally haunted faces, countless millions, all staring back at him, all speaking in one dull monotone,

"No," the Doctor shifted uneasily where he stood, "I cannot help you."

"_Save us!"_

"No!" With a burst of energy, he turned and grasped the spear from Bran's unresisting hands. He stepped away from the villagers, brandishing the weapon in front of him, keeping the warriors in his sight but addressing the Chieftain to one side,

"No! The difference is that you are the unthinking crowd. You are the will of the masses that carries all before it. And as such you will never experience the one thing that keeps in check all the insane and cruel notions that sentient beings are capable of – you will never experience self-doubt. It is that which saves these creatures. The dissenting voice. You grow powerful by subsuming all around you. These creatures will grow powerful by forging connections, by creating a society of individuals. As long as there is non-conformity in their society, they will remain free. I won't let you prevail!"

"_Give us energy, Doctor!"_

"No!" The Doctor tripped back a few steps as the crowd stepped forwards and then halted. As one, they raised their arms,

"_Give us life!"_

The Doctor hesitated, brandishing his weapon vaguely towards Bran and the warriors who, in their gestures and expressions, appeared to be pleading with him in desperation. He shook his head, determined,

"You must go back to where you came from. You must fade away from consciousness where you will do no harm. Where you belong."

Suddenly, the mob surged forwards, their arms outstretched but this time their palms down-turned, their hands like claws, their voices raised in a unified imperative,

"_Succumb to us!"_

An energy wave surged from them, striking the Doctor with a physical force that sent him staggering back a few paces. He crouched, bending his shoulder against the onslaught, struggling as if caught in a violent wind, the knuckles of his fists whitening about the shaft of the spear.

The villagers halted again.

The wave broke and eddied, dissipating about the Doctor who stood up and looked down at the silent gathering with a faint smile of satisfaction.

"I am stronger than you thought!" he shouted. "You tried to invade my mind before in the River but I shut you out then, and I can do so now. It won't be long before your influence over these people begins to fail. Your energy is draining away. You've spread yourself too thinly. What with controlling these people and the birds, and chasing my companions across the Marsh, you will soon exhaust your power supplies, and without an electrical generator you will simply sink back into the state from which you came. It's all just a matter of time!"

He shouted over the heads of the gathering,

"Nyssa! Whatever happens, do not open the TARDIS doors! The Entity wants to harness the TARDIS as a power source. Do not let the Chieftain inside. If the Entity gains entrance, it would be the end for us all!"

A movement like a shiver passed through the crowd moving up into the swirling shrieking flock of birds that suddenly, startlingly, fell silent and then, like a slow explosion of particles, dispersed.

A cluster of birds clattered over the Doctor's head, forcing him to duck. When he stood, the sky above him and the TARDIS was empty.

The crowd of villagers spoke,

"_You will succumb to us, Doctor,"_ they chanted in perfect unison, "_We will wait for you."_

The Doctor felt the hairs on his head and the backs of his hands rise as the air about him thickened with static discharge. He frowned, then muttered quietly,

"Something's not right here. You're already feeding from a power supply, aren't you? You're not waiting for me to help you get inside the TARDIS at all..."

Behind the villagers, the TARDIS' doors cracked open. A person appeared at the threshold, her slim dark figure framed by a light from within the Time Ship.

"Nyssa!" the Doctor ran forwards to the edge of the causeway, but stopped short as the crowd below moved defiantly to meet him. He staggered back, raising the spear before him. He frowned, thinking aloud,

"No. It's not over yet, is it? Your power is still limited. I can still resist your influence." He smiled, "You may have infiltrated the electronics of the console room, but you can't get to the power core, can you? The TARDIS won't let you!"

The crowd spoke again, and this time Nyssa chorused their words,

"_This village is ours now, Doctor, and the power core of this Time Ship will soon be surrendered to us. And then we will spread across this planet and into the Universe, and after that through time itself. To possess all that is and has been and all that will ever be. You will show us the way into the core, eventually. We can wait for you to grow weary and succumb to us, this energy source will serve us for now and in time you _will_ succumb to us,"_ the crowd shouted together, "_It is all just a matter of time."_

But the Doctor was already out of earshot, running on the causeway back out of the marsh.


	16. Chapter 15

15.

"What did you mean when you said 'the Spirit of the Many' must be stopped?"

They had travelled far from the river now and Tegan had formed the impression that they had veered sharply around behind the low hills and were now walking somewhere on the inland side of the village. The landscape here was all meadows, trees and gradual slopes.

The Shaman moved with obvious haste, but at the same time stayed below the summits of the hills, keeping to the edges of the wooded areas, away from open grassland, crouching in his skins and furs like some hunted animal.

"What spirit?" asked Tegan again impatiently. The Shaman replied without turning,

"It is a foreign Spirit. Not one of our Ancestors. Not from these lands."

"Where from, then?"

"It came with the Ghost. The Ghost that spoke to Brionath in the Lands of the Dead. It fell from the stars."

"Oh," Tegan glanced skywards, "Alien invasion... that figures." She called out ahead, "What's this task that we have to perform?"

"The task is for _you_ to complete," replied the Shaman flatly.

"What's this task that _I_ have to perform, then?" asked Tegan, her attitude now one of weary resignation.

"You must carry something between two Lands."

Tegan shook her head, frowning crossly,

"Well, can't you be a little less mysterious?"

She looked after the man in the animal furs, and mumbled privately,

"You _are_ the Doctor, aren't you? Reincarnated?" She nearly laughed, but stopped herself, fearing what it would become, feeling that any kind of emotional outburst right now could only end one way, in tears and desolation.

"Which Lands are you talking about?" she called ahead.

"Walk faster, woman," snapped the Shaman over his shoulder.

"I _am!_" yelped Tegan. She sighed, "I am. And that's enough of the 'woman', Ok? It's 'Tegan'!" She added after a pause, "or 'Miss Jovanka' to you! Anyway, what's the big hurry?"

Ladra turned briefly, without breaking his stride,

"We are trying to save the world."

Tegan shrugged,

"Aw, no worries, then! I've done _that_ before! What are the lands that I am supposed to go between?"

"The Land of the living and the Land of the Spirits!"

"Oh, I _am_ glad I asked," grumbled Tegan to herself. She spoke up, "Where is the Land of the Spirits, when it's at home?"

Ladra stopped and turned to face Tegan who came to a halt before him. He raised his hands,

"You are _in_ the Land of the Spirits!"

Tegan looked about her. She was suddenly aware that they had wandered onto a strip of white ground, several metres wide and completely clear of turf and shrubs, rendered with a kind of thick and powdery plaster that had already smeared the sides of her shoes with bright white marks.

"Is it some sort of causeway?" asked Tegan, lifting her right foot and brushing at it with her fingertips. The Shaman watched her solemnly,

"Yes," he said. He glanced up then walked passed her and stood staring out towards the distant trees.

Tegan lowered her shoe and looked around her,

"Where does it go to?"

She could make out, on the hilltops not far ahead, a string of low burial mounds, like the one she had explored with Bran, and then, with a shock of suddenly seeing what was obvious, she noticed a line of stones running along the roadside close to them, the child-tall slabs standing at regular intervals of several metres.

She followed the sequence along until they appeared to merge with the trench on the horizon where another set of earthworks was just visible against the backdrop of trees.

"What's that up ahead?" she muttered, taking a forwards step as if drawn irresistibly towards the causeway's culmination.

She realised that the Shaman had not answered and, turning, saw that he was standing with his back to her, staring back the way they had come. She followed his gaze,

"What is it? What do you see?"

The Shaman blinked and became aware of her. He grunted and turned and walked on along the white path. Tegan followed.

The sense of procession was increasing and Tegan's sense of her own vulnerability was growing too. She began to feel that the landscape was expanding around them, stretching away so that the white path seemed thin and conspicuous against the broad swathes of green grass. They were diminishing in their surroundings, the path diminishing with them, becoming something to be negotiated carefully like a tightrope, and Tegan began to feel that she had to stay away from the edges as if they were suspended above a terrifying drop, the fields and hills and trees lying far below menacing and dangerous. And overhead, the great pitiless dome of the sky.

When she spoke again, her voice was subdued and anxious,

"What have we come here to get, Ladra?"

The Shaman replied solemnly,

"A gift from the Spirit world."

They had reached the end of the procession. The path ran down into a shallow bowl scooped out of the earth, ten metres or so across and covered with the white render. The parade of stones beside them had ended abruptly, but Tegan could see now a circle of lower, fatter boulders encompassing the whole site, running around behind them and away on both sides and painted with marks and symbols in various faded colours. Around the raised edges of the bowl was a low fence of grey aged wood, adorned like the gateway back at the village with rags and tatters of cloth and fur and feathers.

As they entered the white arena, Tegan felt the Shaman's hand gently press her arm, urging her to wait behind as he went on to the centre.

There were objects piled around, bits of cloth and shards of pottery and the pale delicate rods and combs of animal skeletons, all in neat bundles, and the Shaman stood in the midst of them and, for a moment, appeared to be talking, a faint musical mumble breaking the silence. Then he fell silent and raised his arms out to either side of him. He finished his prayer and reached down, picking something up from the ground at his feet, then walked back over to Tegan and thrust the object into her hands.

For a squeemish moment Tegan thought it was a human bone, but then saw that it was the shaft and barb of a deer's antler. The Shaman spoke to her,

"Dig, where I was standing. Be quick!" He pointed.

She stared at him, then followed his indication.

"What am I suppose to be digging for?"

He pushed her into the circle,

"You will know it when you find it! Dig!"

He turned and went over to the gap in the fence, staring out from there along the path, still, it appeared, expecting the approach of something.

Tegan hesitated at the tip of another argument, then, relenting, she fell to one knee and began scraping at the ground experimentally with the point of the antler. The surface crumbled and broke apart easily, revealing black soil underneath. She glanced up as she worked,

"What am I looking for?" but the Shaman did not reply, continuing instead to peer out of the circle.

Tegan frowned,

"What's with all the mystery suddenly?"

The Shaman turned, shouting,

"Dig deeper. You will find it! Dig!"

"I can't find anyth – ugh!"

Tegan sprang back, scrambling to her feet and staring down at the hole she had made.

"Keep digging!"

Tegan glared back at the Shaman,

"You never said anything about that!" she pointed at the ground.

"Dig, woman. You must dig!"

"_You_ dig!" Tegan shouted as the Shaman looked at her. "Why don't _you_ dig if you want... what, whatever, _what am I digging for?_"

With a quick glance behind, the Shaman came over to her. He stared into her gaze, the lines around his face deep like carvings in wood, his matted beard stiff with mud, the skinny arms, the ridiculous head-dress, the reek of him suddenly sharp and overwhelming. But his eyes shone like gemstones. A boy's stare gleaming through his ancient features.

"This is sacred ground!" he said, "These are the bones of my Ancestors! I _cannot_ dig here! _You_ must find the gift the Ghost brought to my village all those many Winters ago. It was buried with the Chieftain. _You_ must find it, and you must take it with you."

"Where to?"

"Take it to the blue dolmen that stands now by the causeway."

"The blue –?" Tegan frowned. The Shaman nodded,

"Where you were with the Chieftain's man, the goat-keeper Bran! It is the entrance to another world. When the door was opened sunlight shone from within."

A thought suddenly came to Tegan,

"The TARDIS? You mean the TARDIS?"

The Shaman nodded eagerly,

"Take the gift of the ghost and go into the blue tomb. That is your task. Take it into the chamber and cast it into the sunlight."

Tegan glowered at him, pouting with rage, not certain if she wanted to trust him and do as he asked, but knowing in her heart that she had no choice. She _had_ to act.

There was a sound, in the distance, faint but distinct above the noise of wind and blown leaves. The Shaman turned and went quickly to the gap in the fence. Tegan followed and stood beside him, looking along the avenue of white ground.

On the fringe of the horizon, a cluster of low shapes appeared, moving in their direction.

"What are they?" Tegan breathed. The Shaman replied, staring fixedly ahead,

"Medhal's hounds." He reached into his coat of furs and pulled out his bronze blade. "They are hunting us. Quickly!" He gestured away to his right, "When you have found the token of the Ghost, go that way. Keep your shadow before you. Keep straight and you will arrive at the causeway. Take it into your blue chamber, into the sunlight that shines inside. Go, dig for the token. It is the only way to stop the Spirit. Go, now!" He looked at her, his gaze fierce and urgent, "That is your task," then turned, and stared ahead, "This is mine."

He ran off along the white path.

The yap of the hounds was distinct now and Tegan could see their dark shaggy shapes clearly against the white procession way. She stood watching for some moments, her feet rooted beneath her, her gaze focused on the pack of dogs and the huddled thing in skins that scurried to meet them. Then the world broadened about her and she became conscious of herself.

She turned and went back to the hole where dark earth was piled upon the gypsum layer. There was something there, amidst the shreds of tattered cloth and the spikes of charred bones. She reached down and scooped it up. She cleaned some of the soil from its surface. It was a cylinder the size of her fist tapering and flaring at both ends, dark grey-blueish in colour and smooth all over like a pebble. It felt unexpectedly light in her hand.

The noise of howling dogs was punctured now by savage growls and then a scream that sent a shiver through her where she knelt.

A silence fell.

Tegan listened hard. For a moment the sounds of the wind blown leaves was all she could make out beyond the circumference of the white dish. Then she heard a growl. She turned.

Low down, at the entrance to the circle a dark muzzle appeared, black lips pulled back about yellow fangs, a pink froth of saliva lacing the red-smeared gums.

Tegan clutched the smooth stone to her chest, moving back on her haunches as another of the dogs appeared behind the first, the two creeping with caution through the gap in the fence, their glaring eyes darting this way and that, their muzzles slick with blood.

Tegan stood,

'Nice... doggies?" she ventured.

At her movement the hounds responded, their growls rising in a crescendo. One of them barked and then sprung into the air. Tegan squealed, turning her back and bracing herself for the impact of the hefty body, the snap of sharp jaws but nothing happened. She flinched as she heard a human cry close by and then the high-pitched yelps of dogs and, glancing behind her, saw a tumble of movement, a flurry of fox tails and a slash of copper light before she turned again and started to run.

She hurdled the frail wooden fence and stumbled on through knotted grass leaving the floundering dark shapes and the screams and gurgling noises in the white well on the horizon far behind.

---

A cluster of birds darted low over a clump of reeds deep into the marsh, skimming the still grey surface of the waters and then rising into the air like dabs of ash drifting from a fire. They disappeared into the white sky, the sounds of their wings and shrill cries quickly receding, leaving behind them silence.

There was a crash and the water broke, a figure emerging gasping for air, clutching a body in his arms, this one white and heavy like a marble statue.

Mahl dragged Adric in his armour onto the grass and slumped beside him, gasping. After some moments, he had recovered enough to sit up and lean over the prostrate figure. He held the head in both hands pulling awkwardly until, with a click, it came away from the neck. He put the helmet down next to him then pressed his ear to Adric's parted lips. He sat up, reached over and squeezed the joins at the sides of the chest plate which clicked suddenly and broke apart. He lifted the chest-piece away and pushed his ear to Adric's chest in the same way he had seen the Doctor do some time before.

He sat up and looked down.

Adric moaned where he lay and turned his head. Mahl smiled down at him,

"Well," he said, "You are not a ghost yet."

---

Under vast skies a tiny figure stumbled over green fields.

"Absolutely... bloody... no bloody doubt about it – ouch! my toe!... one hundred percent... ouch! stupid nettles... completely and _utterly_... ouch! bloody... _typical!"_

Tegan was walking carefully barefoot down an uneven slope carrying her stilettos in one hand, the Ghost's stone grasped in the other.

The white arena was behind her. The shaman had not followed, the last glimpse of him an image of lacerated flesh and blood-soaked furs, the dogs silent now and nowhere to be seen. There was nobody around, and nothing except the flat stone she had pulled from the grave and a direction to walk in and her anger. But she had the feeling of being followed.

Tegan tripped, kicked the earth and stubbed her toe again,

"Ouch! Why am _I..."_ She glanced behind her. She called out, "What am I supposed to do with this, anyway? 'Throw it into the sunlight'? What sunlight? It's indoors!" She could feel tears of frustration welling up in her eyes and throat and fought to hold them back. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She sighed, turned and walked on, tip-toeing in her stockinged feet,

"This really wasn't a part of my Emergency Situation training..."

She giggled, a shiver of relief coursing through her. But it passed suddenly, tension filling her chest again like hot metal pouring down her throat. She stopped giggling.

"Why have I got to do this, anyway?" she muttered, her voice becoming louder as frustration grew, "Eh? Tell me? Why have _I_ been left with all this stuff to do, eh? The world is going to end, again, I see, well let's get Yovanka onto it, she _is_ a fully qualified air hostess, after all! Hello, Tegan Yovanka here?! Yes, yes I'll get shot at and chased by lizard men and bitten by giant bloody snakes and whatever else you've got. Just bring 'em on! After all, I do know how to deal with it all having just finished my basic Air Cabin Crew training... Sh – oh, _Rabbits_! I haven't even been on a proper long-haul, yet, y'know?! This _isn't_ my bloody job!_"_

Her words went up into the clouds. Silence engulfed them. She opened her eyes. She sighed and looked down at the slope, and then froze.

Ahead of her, it's ruddy coat stark against the swathes of green grass, was a fox. It was watching her, looking straight at her. She could see the details of its face clearly. The dark cones of its ears, the bright eyes, gold with jet dark centres, the slender muzzle with its flash of white fur, the open mouth and its black lips and barbed white teeth and pale toungue, broad and flat and thin like a blade. It was scrutinising her, it seemed – judging her presence before it, an alien on it's territory and for a brief moment Tegan felt a kind of vulnerable shiver pass though her, as if she'd been caught doing something shameful.

The animal held her gaze for a moment then, without a second glance, it moved away, disappearing swiftly into the undergrowth, vanishing with a spectral grace.

Tegan stared at the place where it had been. She blinked. Then she leaned down and awkwardly strapped her shoes onto her stockinged feet and stood again, tottering a little on the uneven ground, her mouth a tight slit of determination, her eyes fixed ahead, towards where the slope became a thin straggling line of trees, beyond which the marshlands showed flat and grey.

"Right!" she muttered grimly as she started to walk, "C'mon, Tegan Yovanka! Brave bloody heart!"

---

The corridor. The dimming light. A bright line on the floor turning dark like a rod of burning copper quenched in water. Pink afterglows sliding into the blackness and the silence. Then in the silence, a new sound, roaring like the wind, like an alien bird from an alien Universe calling...

---

The world came back to Adric through his ears at first, the soft sounds of someone moving nearby, the hiss of the wind in the reeds. Then he felt the air cool on his arms and legs chilling his wet clothes. The smell of rotting weeds was in his nostrils, his mouth was cold and numb. He lifted his head, opened his eyes, blinked. The blaze of daylight dimmed and shapes formed, the pale sky, dark spikes of grass. He shook his head and leaned onto his hand and pulled his legs up, standing unsteadily, reaching out to keep his balance.

A white figure stood in the reeds ahead of him, glowing in the sunlight. It was turning away as if to leave and Adric called out after it,

"Mahl? Wait!"

The figure stopped, turned back towards him. Adric asked,

"Where are you going?"

The figure hesitated, then raised its arm, pointing along the reedy promontory that ran away behind it meeting up in the distance with the dark line of the causeway.

"You're going back to the TARDIS?"

The figure lowered its hand.

"Don't go."

The figure began to turn away.

"Don't go!" Adric stepped forwards, reaching out, "Why are you going back there?"

The figure halted. It turned.

"Nyssa will be safe inside the TARDIS," explained Adric, "There's no need to go back!"

The figure moved, the shoulders of the suit rising and falling slightly, a shrug. It turned again. Adric cried out,

"Don't go!" Then, seeing that his plea was ignored, added hurriedly, "Wait!" He began to move forward. "Let me come with you?"

The figure stopped and turned again raising its arm, holding the palm of it's china glove flat out towards Adric in a gesture of rebuff. Adric halted. He was staring hard at the featureless white head, as if trying to pierce its ceramic skin with his sight.

"The villagers are still there", he explained, "The suit will protect you from the alien entity, but not from the people."

The white figure stood regarding him, voiceless, expressionless, still and shining.

"They will kill you," said Adric, quieter now, "If you go now they will kill you. Don't go."

The figure moved, tipping its head to look down its chest and reaching up to its collar where a bar of dark metal hung from a leather strap. It fumbled clumsily for a moment, unclasping the neck band, then it held the object out, bevelled edges shining as it turned. With careful deliberation, Mahl knelt on one knee and lay the necklace in the grass.

He stood and they faced one another, the alien and the ghost, and Adric spoke very quietly, hardly opening his lips,

"Don't leave me on my own."

But the white clad figure was already turning, making its way, stumbling yet swift, towards the causeway.


	17. Chapter 16

16.

It wasn't long before Tegan could make out the unnatural blue of the TARDIS on the grey horizon of reeds and water.

She slowed down as she walked. There was no one in sight along the causeway but she was wary all the same. Her heels were noisy on the wooden boards and she had the feeling that if she was going to meet with someone waiting further along, she wanted to have the element of surprise.

She looked at the ghost's stone in her hand. It didn't seem anything out of the ordinary, just a piece of rock, apart from its subtle shape, vaguely like a blunted axe head. There were no marks on it to indicate it was a part of something, or did anything. No buttons or sockets; it was perfectly smooth.

"Maybe it's symbolic," she mused, her voice sounding louder than she'd expected. She looked anxiously ahead.

The TARDIS was closer now, and through the shimmering reed heads at the edge of the causeway she could make out dark tall shapes that at first glance she took for stones, like the ones that had lined the route to the burial ground.

"The Spirit of the many..." she muttered, more discreetly to herself this time.

The villagers had gathered before the TARDIS, standing with their backs towards her, still and quiet, focused on the blue box that had indeed, at least in this context, something of the appearance of a menhir about it, an ancient stoneage monument or tomb as the Shaman had described it. Suddenly, Tegan felt her heart leap in her throat, a stab of cold dread and regret. What if the Doctor's body had been brought here from the river?

The TARDIS' door was open. She could see the glow of the console room within.

"Daylight," she muttered, the noise some comfort in the unusual quiet. It was true, she couldn't help it: when she walked she talked.

She was close enough to identify individuals now: Bréon, Fintan, the old woman, Bran. Instinctively, she began to call out to him, then remembered the river bank and his figure standing and staring in response to her cry for help, distant and disinterested.

And then, before she could even close her mouth, the villagers turned to face her.

They turned as one, exactly in unison, even the children in their mothers' arms, like a field of sunflowers opening to the dawn, and when they stopped turning they spoke, the sound of their voices like a rush of wind at her,

"_Who?"_

She was caught on the boards, suddenly in the limelights, the absolute focus of their attention. The air thrummed with their combined effort of concentration. She looked down at them, at the mass of faces, an audience, and thought that there was something she didn't like about their unity, something pitiful and repellant.

After a few seconds, she spoke, as much to dispel the tension as anything,

"What's happening here? What's wrong with you all?"

Blank, uncomprehending stares responded.

"What have you done with the Doctor?"

Again, no reply. Tegan felt a breath of wind on her face, ruffling her hair. She gripped the stone token in her hand, seeking reassurance in its hard resilient surface.

"Something's wrong with you all."

There was an emptiness in their gazes, the same distracted look you might get when someone you were talking to had just stopped listening. Their minds were elsewhere.

She felt without certainty that she had been here before.

"What's wrong with you all? Bréon?" She asked, and thought she glimpsed a fleeting change in the Chieftain's expression. "Why don't you answer me? Can't you?" She turned and looked at the goat-herd, "Bran? This is Tegan speaking. Priestess Tegan. What's making you like this." She glanced over at the TARDIS' doors, "Why aren't you answering me? Bran? Listen! I order you to respond to me, do you hear? If you don't tell me what's going on... I will... I will summon the birds–"

It was as if Bran had surfaced from underwater. With a gasp, he fell forwards, clutching at his spear, staring up at Tegan, his eyes wide in terror,

"Priestess! Help us!"

The crowd shuddered, some suddenly crying out and babies bawling, some clutching their heads as if to cover their ears, some reaching up towards Tegan on the causeway. She staggered back, startled by their sudden animation,

"What's happening?"

But then, as swiftly as it had started, the panic stopped. The crowd fell silent again. But their stillness was more unnerving than their agitation had been.

Tegan fixed her jaw and gripped the stone firmly in her fist. She stepped to the edge of the causeway and jumped down onto the marshy ground and stood amongst the crowd who had turned to follow her descent and were watching her movements with a fixed intensity. She felt the wind on her face again and brushed her hair back. Ahead, through the gaps between the people, she could see the light of the TARDIS' doors and moved towards it.

Someone, one of the younger men holding a spear, stepped in front of her.

"You have to let me pass," she said flatly, as calm as she could manage, and pushed forward, brushing the warrior aside. But another villager moved to bar her way.

"Listen, you have to let me through!" She tried to keep the panic from her voice, "If you'd just–" It was all about showing them who was in charge. That you weren't intimidated. "Everyone now, just move back, please!"

She _had_ been trained to deal with this. Day four: Diffusing potentially volatile situations – A role-play exercise: Delay of Flight 541 to Benedorm announced at Departure Lounge Gate Five. Now. Speak clearly, keep your tone of voice level. Show them you're in control and stay focused on your goal. Don't let yourself get provoked into losing your temper and if someone really pisses you off, _remember their name and flight number._ There'll be plenty of opportunities later to spike their coffee with laxatives...

Tegan stopped. She was surrounded, the crowd of villagers pressing on all sides, staring like mannequins. But something was happening now and they were moving away from her, and suddenly she realised that she had raised the hand which held the ghost's stone, and the villagers were staring at it.

It was as if she'd pulled a gun on them. She gripped the object tighter, holding it out and higher in front of her as she strode purposefully on to the doors, the villagers parting to let her through. She was shaking, she could hear in her head the Shaman's voice – _Take it into the chamber and cast it into the sunlight_ – and see the doorway where the light glowed then flickered as someone moved into the frame, dark, thin, her long hair piled around her pale open face that was smiling, grinning warmly in welcome.

"Nyssa!" Tegan stumbled forwards. Nyssa responded with a wave,

"Tegan!"

"What's happening here? What's happened to the villagers?"

Nyssa answered, still smiling, as Tegan reached the doorway,

"I don't know. They came here all together, not long after you escaped from the village. It's as if they are waiting for something. What's that you have there?"

Tegan glanced down at the stone in her hand,

"It's – I don't know, I was told–" she moved to walk into the console room but Nyssa stayed where she was, barring her way. Tegan stepped back, "Nyssa, quickly, let me in."

Nyssa did not move. She kept smiling and gazing at the stone,

"I'm not sure I should, Tegan, not until you tell me what that object is."

"It's just," Tegan waved it in front of her, "It's some sort of device, I'm not sure. It's to do with the villagers. It's like they're acting as one person – talk about mob rule! Nyssa, let me pass."

"No."

Tegan felt a hand firmly on her shoulder, pushing her back, but she wasn't looking at the girl anymore. She was staring into the doorway behind,

"Nyssa, what's going on in there?" Tegan couldn't be sure, but she thought she had glimpsed something odd through the TARDIS' doors: a mass of colour spreading across the console room's normally pristine white floor.

Nyssa was standing in her way again, obscuring her view. The girl's smile had gone and she was staring back at Tegan with an eerie intensity.

"Nyssa? What have you been doing in there?"

Nyssa shrugged, but her expression remained fixed, stern and foreboding,

"Everything is as it was. I just can't let you in until I'm sure about the device, that's all." Her speech remained calm, "It could be anything, Tegan. We must protect the TARDIS, the Doctor would insist."

"The Doctor's dead!" snapped Tegan, her temper and patience fraying.

"Then, we must ensure the integrity of the TARDIS without him," responded Nyssa levelly. A polite smile flickered over her small lips, "Mustn't we? For all we know, the device could represent a danger to us."

And Tegan heard it again, the faint echo of the words behind her as someone in the crowd spoke them too. She frowned, stepped further away,

"Nyssa?"

"Yes, Tegan?" (and there, the 'T' clicking in the air at her back)

"How did you know I had escaped from the village?"

The hesitation that followed did not last long – just enough time for Tegan to take advantage of it and push passed Nyssa through the TARDIS' doors. She staggered to a halt and stared,

"My God, Nyssa! What have you done?"

The console room had exploded, or at least appeared to have. Roundels were sprung open on all the walls, and their contents, cables and circuitry had been dragged onto the floor and were piled around the central stem. The smell of burnt tin singed the air and blue light sparked here and there in the twisted mass of wiring that was coiled and entangled like the guts of some slaughtered giant.

Suddenly, Tegan was aware of movement by her shoulder, then slender arms lunged about her waist and hauled her backwards. She lost her footing and together, she and Nyssa fell outdoors, tumbling onto the sodden earth. Tegan struggled, fending off some ineffectual attempts to pin her shoulders down as the smaller girl clambered onto her, skinny and light but agile.

It wasn't going to be a fair fight, she thought with a sudden grim determination. She'd grown up on a Farm with two brothers and no television – this sort of rough and tumble had once been second nature to her, an essential part of her childhood before puberty had made her strangely untouchable. But the tom-boy cat-fighter was still there, ingrained in her, deep down under the skin like a bruise.

Tegan reached up and grabbed a handful of Nyssa's thick hair, then yanked it down. They rolled and Tegan was on top now, grabbing the other girl's wrists in each hand and pinning her to the ground. Nyssa was struggling but, to her surprise, when Tegan looked down, the girl's expression was vacant and detached. She might as well have been asleep!

_The stone!_ It had slipped from her hands when they'd rolled out of the console room. She looked around desperately, and saw it lying half-sunken in the reeds a few feet away. Beyond it the villagers were watching in a crowd, mumbling some sort of garbled, incoherent chorus.

Then beneath her, Nyssa squealed,

"Tegan! Make it stop!" shaking her head, her eyes open now, wide in terror as though something was burrowing its way through her skull and into her mind.

The girl fell silent, a weird dead calm settling over her features. Then, suddenly, Tegan felt hands on her from behind. She was being lifted to her feet, people all around her, a strange wild fearful anger on their faces, and they were shouting, their cry ringing out in absolute harmony,

"_What are you?"_

They were silent again. Tegan could hear Nyssa crying, and struggled to see the girl crawling through the water towards the TARDIS' doors. Then she heard another voice,

"Preistess!" and saw Bran further back amongst the crowd, staring at her as if he had suddenly just seen her. The rest of the villagers seemed equally confused, shaking their heads, talking urgently to one another. A sort of hush descended as, with a ripple of turning heads, they looked towards the causeway.

Something was coming towards them, gliding like a spectre above the rushes, a pale shape shifting across the skyline.

The hands holding Tegan fell away, and she stepped forwards staring in disbelief at the approaching vision. She whispered,

"But you're dead!" as the apparition reached the edge of the platform and stopped, the cause of its supernatural progress suddenly clear.

The Doctor stepped down from the carriage leaving the goat which was yoked to the rickety vehicle bleating a brief complaint before settling down to chew at a nearby clump of rushes.

"The chariot of your Ancestors, Bréon!" called the Time Lord addressing the crowd, "Do you remember how your Father once rode amongst your people in it? Like the god of the new day rising with the dawn and crossing the sky!"

Tegan looked about her. The villagers were transfixed, it seemed, by the sight of the Doctor and the chariot that he had arrived on, as if he'd descended from the very heavens.

The goat, meanwhile, had wondered off in search of better feeding, dragging the cart bumping and rattling behind it.

She started to call out, but a voice interrupted her, Nyssa was running up to the boardwalk,

"Doctor! Oh, Doctor! It was horrible! It got inside the TARDIS, it got in through my mind!"

The Doctor jumped down beside the girl. He placed a hand tenderly on her shoulder,

"It's all right, Nyssa," then turned to the crowd who were still gazing at him as though star-struck, "I want you all to listen, and concentrate very hard. There are parts of your mind that even the Entity cannot penetrate. Deep, important layers of your consciousness that make up the unassailable core of your common humanity. They are the memories of your people. The subliminal roots of your culture. I want you to focus on them. Concentrate hard on all those villagers who have gone before you, on all the dead friends who have left you behind, on all the ghosts who have made you what you are..."

"Doctor!" Tegan called out. He turned on her sharply,

"Not now, Tegan!" Then back towards the villagers, "It's imperative that you do as I say! Concentrate. Listen to the voices of your Ancestors!"

"But, Doctor," Tegan had reached him, in her hand the ghost's stone which she had picked up from the mud. She thrust it into his grasp,

"The Shaman gave it to me, back at the burial grounds, he told me to bring it here!"

The Doctor looked up from examining the object,

"Bring it here, why?"

Tegan shrugged, she growled her reply,

"I don't know why - he just told me to! He said it would kill the spirit!"

"It's a deep-phase solenoid, Tegan! That's all!" the Doctor snapped, then, regarding her reaction, added, "A Magnetic generator. Alien technology. It must have been used in the sunken spaceship to contain the Entity in a magnetic field. But it's no good here. We haven't time to set it up. It may not even be functional. Our only hope now is to cut off the Entity's power supply." He hesitated, suddenly aware of the crowd again who were watching in dumb amazement. Quietly, urgently, he spoke behind him, "Nyssa, I want you, when I say run, to follow me into the TARDIS – we're going to shut down the main console..."

"But she can't!" Tegan waved her hands, "She's been pulling the place to pieces, Doctor. There's wires everywhere!"

The Doctor glared at her, then glanced at the TARDIS' doors.

"It's protecting itself whilst it tries to get into the core!" he hissed, and with a sudden urgency turned back to Nyssa, "What was it making you do in there?" The girl looked blankly at him. He held her shoulders firmly, peering deep into her frightened gaze, "Nyssa, please try to remember? What was the Entity trying to get you to do?"

Tegan reached out and grabbed the Doctor's sleeve,

"Doctor! The Shaman said I must take the stone into the TARDIS. He said it was the only way to stop the Spirit! Take it into the chamber, he said, and cast it into the sunlight!"

He pushed her hand away, anger flashing in his eyes as he looked at her,

"Then he was _wrong_, Tegan!"

"But..." she stared up at him, her lips pressed trembling together, bright tears at the edges of her startled gaze. She spoke in a shaking heartfelt whisper,

"...but I thought you were dead!"

There was a noise, a familiar sound, a roaring respiratory wheeze from the direction of the TARDIS. The doorway was filled with light now, a brilliant glow that suddenly streamed from the console room casting lances of shadow flickering over the ground and into the sky.

Tegan staggered back, covering her face with her hand. She heard the Doctor's voice behind her, softened in awe,

"Oh no."

And looked, blinking and dazzled, at him,

"Doctor?"

He was staring intently into the centre of the blaze as he spoke with a kind of calm resignation,

"You've re-wired the console, Nyssa, by-passed the TARDIS' security circuits. The Entity has found its way to the power core. It's feeding directly from it."

Tegan became aware of movement all around her, the villagers turning towards them, their actions slow and automatic, their faces like masks turned golden by the light. But in their eyes the light had all but extinguished.

Desperately, she lunged at the Doctor, grabbing the stone from his hand, clutching it firmly to her chest. She started to run.

"Tegan! No!"

Strong hands grabbed her, hauling her back. She felt the solid and reassuring press of the Doctor's chest at her back as he pulled her close to him.

"Let go!" she yelled, despite herself almost, and felt the Doctor's hug tighten, his voice loud in her ear, his breath on her cheek,

"No, Tegan! It's futile! We wouldn't stand a chance so near to the core – the energy would shake our molecules apart!"

And then there was another voice, less urgent and anxious, sounding everywhere around her. The villager's chorus.

"_We will not go back!"_ They clearly said.

_Back where?_ thought Tegan, and the voice spoke again, like a groan of desperation,

"_Oblivion."_

Something moved through her like a blast of wind, pulling at her clothes and hair. She felt her skin prickle with static and the light suddenly intensified, a golden flare sending shafts of dark and brilliance leaping from between the crowd who stood like columns of flint about her.

_So, this is how it feels_, she thought as the light filled her vision. _It doesn't hurt._

She staggered back, shoved by the intensifying wind, and fell. The Doctor was no longer behind her. She saw him running towards the TARDIS, the stone in his grasp, prised from her grip and then he stumbled.

He stopped, stepping backwards, hands up against his head, an arc of brilliant blue joining him and the doorway, and in the bright and black flickering glare something moved away from him. A figure, as white as a ghost.

_It's happening again,_ she thought. _He's going to be different all over again._

Then she heard the Doctor's voice above the hiss and roar,

"No. Adric, _don't_!"

And saw again the doorway to the TARDIS and the white figure striding through it, dissolving into the light that was bright as molten metal.

Something struck her, knocking her onto her back, a blast of air rushing over her, sucking the breath from her lungs. She lay reeling, struggling not to suffocate. It was like being trapped in a wind tunnel.

And then, just as suddenly, it ended. Tegan gasped where she lay, waiting for her head to clear. Her chest was light again, breathing was a relief. Her eyes focused. The sky overhead was pale and cloudless. She could hear quiet noises all around, the rustle of clothing, subdued voices, and then a baby started to cry.

The TARDIS was still in one piece, strange and blue and monolithic at the water's edge, it's doorway once more filled with the soft welcoming glow of the console room, but across its threshold a body now lay face down, awkward and crooked like a crash-test dummy, its arm outstretched over the sodden ground, its white clothes spread in odd jagged tatters all about it.

The Doctor was kneeling at its side, in his pale coat, his blonde hair falling over his face as he looked down. Still the pale coat. Still the blonde hair. Still the small nose and the slender jaw. Still her Doctor.

Tegan stood, shakily. People were moving passed her, gathering at the TARDIS' doors, obscuring the Doctor from her view. She could hear him explaining something patiently to someone else she could not see.

She moved forwards,

"Doctor?" elbowing her way through the crowd, trying to see between the people. She called out, "Adric?" and felt a sudden anger that the villagers weren't giving way to her, weren't letting her pass, a kind of panic in anticipation of what might be revealed. Then she emerged from them just as the Doctor stood up, something in his hands, a skull she thought. No, a white helmet. The rags of white clothing she had glimpsed from a distance now looked like broken shards of crockery. She could see the body's face and realised, with a kind of relief, that it was not Adric's.

The Doctor spoke, addressing himself to a man standing over the corpse,

"I'm very sorry." And Tegan realised that the man was Bréon, the fear and confusion from earlier now thrown off, the dignity of his position reclaimed.

Suddenly, behind her, a woman's voice cried out, making Tegan jump, and somebody pushed passed, a grey-haired woman who ran over to the corpse, shrieking with anguish, falling upon it, the dark cloak and sleeves she wore billowing like wings.

At a sign from the Chieftain, men with spears came over and tried to lift the body, but the old woman would not let them, clutching it to her, rocking backwards and forwards, cradling it in her arms like a mother with a newborn baby until a girl came forward from the crowd whom Tegan recognised from the roundhouse, Eriu, and bent down and prised the woman's hands apart, urging her to let go and to stand, comforting with quiet insistent speech. The men with spears lifted the body between them, glazed ceramic falling with a gentle clinking sound, and as they bore it away, the Chieftain turned and spoke,

"I understand what he did," replying to the Doctor, "He died a warrior's death, fighting to protect his village. He will go to the Ancestors wreathed in honour. He will meet our Father. They will walk again together in the Lands of the Dead."

With a nod and a brief sad smile he followed the cortège, the girl and the grey-haired woman and the rest of the people following.

Tegan felt an arm thread itself through hers. Nyssa was by her side, watching the departing procession with tears in her eyes. Tegan looked back towards the crowd and caught sight of Adric standing some distance away at the edge of the reeds, looking on. She began to call out to him but with a tug on her wrist Nyssa stopped her, shaking her head at Tegan's enquiring glance.

When she turned back, Adric had gone, the reeds shivering where he had been.

Within minutes the villagers had gone too, following the causeway through the marshes, the sound of the women-folk's keening ululations drifting back to them on the gentle breeze.

At last, Tegan could keep silent no longer,

"Who was the boy?" she asked gently.

"He was a very brave young man," replied Nyssa from beside her, in that imperious, grown-up way of hers that was now familiar enough for Tegan not to patronise with even a slight smile. There was another brief silence, then Tegan asked,

"Doctor, what has happened?"

She watched the Doctor's broad back relax a little, saw him fumble in his pocket for something and pull his hand out. He turned, pushing his hat onto his head, and gave the briefest of smiles before walking passed the two girls and into the TARDIS.

They followed and found him standing before the console surveying the wreckage of electronics with dismay.

He sighed loudly, then went and picked something up from amidst the tangled wiring. Blue flashes wriggled through the circuitry. The smell of burnt tin filled the air. He turned, looking at Tegan properly now and smiling.

"You were right," he explained, "Or at least your friend the Shaman was right." He held something up for Tegan to see: the pale misshapen-oval of the ghost's stone. He tossed it casually towards her, she caught it with a yelp of alarm.

"It's quite safe now," he explained calmly, "Just a little warm, perhaps." He started moving around the mess of the console room again.

Tegan stared at the stone,

"Is it – Is the Entity trapped in here now?"

The Doctor pulled on a handful of cables experimentally, letting go hurriedly as sparks showered up. He blew on his fingers, and replied flatly,

"No, Tegan."

"But, I thought you said –"

"Well, yes, it does appear that the spaceship which crash-landed in the Marsh was some sort of prison ship, designed to contain the entity inside that deep-phase solenoid."

"Deep-phase solenoids are used in warp-drive technology to control energy dispersal," explained Nyssa brightly. The Doctor nodded,

"Thank you, Nyssa. Normally, they are able to contain huge amounts of electrical energy but what seems to have happened here –" the Doctor paused and stared around him, his shoulders sagging a little, "It appears that in the presence of such a massive discharge, the solenoid... inverted."

Tegan frowned. Nyssa spoke up,

"Are you saying that, instead of attracting the energy of the Entity, Doctor, the solenoid _repelled_ it?"

The Doctor nodded, smiling,

"Yes," he raised his hand, twisting it to describe something turning upside-down, "It's polarity was reversed." He paused to observe Tegan's look of bewilderment, then explained softly, "It's all to do with the flow of neutrons."

"So, where is the Entity now?" pouted Tegan, still wary of the object she was holding.

The Doctor was standing before her. He looked down and raised his hand, touching the side of her temple with a finger,

"In here," he said simply and went outside. Tegan glanced at Nyssa, but she seemed none the wiser. Hurriedly, the two girls followed the Doctor out through the doors again.

"What do you mean, Doctor?"

"In plain English, please!"

He was standing with his back to them again, staring at the horizon, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets. He called behind him,

"The energy released from the power core of the TARDIS caused a magnetic explosion in the solenoid which the Entity was caught up in. It was suddenly spread across a vast distance in a very short time." He paused, waiting for Tegan's frown, continuing just before she started to speak,

"In other words, Tegan: Zap! Didn't you wonder why the Entity had no control over you? I didn't notice it at first, but looking back it seems obvious: The being was having great difficulty trying to subsume your consciousness, Tegan. The Shaman realised it, which is why he enlisted your help."

Tegan touched her forehead slowly, frowning as she struggled with an idea,

"Are you saying it's _in_ my head?"

"A very small part of it, yes." The Doctor turned. He nodded, "It's been stretched across the surface of this planet, so thinly spread that it will never regain the coherence it once had. But a tiny part of it has lodged in the mind of each sentient creature alive, like iron filings attracted to a magnet, and now remains fixed there existing as a part of the individual brain, to be passed from one generation to the next as an integral part of your conscious being."

"It acted for Tegan like an inoculation," exclaimed Nyssa, with sudden understanding, "When the Entity encountered a tiny part of it's own being, it couldn't make sense of it, and could not control it."

Tegan was staring at the stone in her hands, frowning profoundly. Suddenly, she was aware of someone standing in front of her. The Doctor was gazing down at her,

"Thank you, Tegan. What you did was courageous and unselfish."

She looked up at him, suddenly flustered by his compliment. She could feel the beginnings of a blush at the base of her throat. She shrugged and muttered vaguely in response,

"I dunno... sometimes it seems that all I ever do around here is trip over my heels and get cross."

The Doctor smiled,

"Your temper is your strength, Tegan. It's your particular talent."

Tegan looked up at him in surprise,

"Somebody else told me that..."

The Doctor smirked,

"Well, he must have been a wise man indeed."

"Hmm..." Tegan pursed her lips thoughtfully, "I'm not so sure. He was wearing a dead fox on his head at the time..."

The Doctor looked over at Nyssa, smiled briefly and said with a slightly weary skyward glance,

"And well done, Nyssa." He waved vaguely through the TARDIS doors, "That was a remarkable piece of re-engineering."

Nyssa beamed, proud and pleased as the Doctor walked passed her and back again into the TARDIS. Tegan called out suddenly,

"I'm not sure I like the idea of that thing being in my head!"

Nyssa smiled kindly at her,

"But, you've got no choice, Tegan. The Entity has always been there. It's a part of your human consciousness. You inherited it from your Ancestors," she explained as, with a sudden prim sprightliness in her step, she led her friend back into the console room. The Doctor was now heaving bundles of wire away from the central control stem.

Tegan scowled,

"Well, that may be, but I still don't like it, is all I'm saying. Hey! You don't mean that it's in there _controlling_ my mind?"

"Partially, perhaps" shrugged Nyssa, not overly concerned, "Complex organisms often contain parasites that eventually evolve to become an integral part of the bodies they inhabit. We call it symbiosis."

Tegan stared at her as if the TARDIS' translation circuits had suddenly gone on the blink.

"Ever been to a rock concert, Tegan?" called the Doctor, looking up over a heap of fairy-lights, "Or a political rally? Ever watched a great sporting occasion, shared the experience with a thousand other people?" He stood up, musing aloud, "Ah! Lords cricket ground! The fight to regain the Ashes! Flintoff and Pietersen battling heroically against the old enemy..." he glanced at Tegan, adding hurriedly, "Not everybody enjoyed themselves, obviously. But for the rest of us... ah!" He sighed, savouring a private smile before continuing, "It's not the same watching on your own, you know! The roar of the crowd, Tegan. The feeling of that shared moment. Standing in a muddy field listening to Jimi Hendrix play America the Beautiful! Seeing the fireworks display over Sydney Harbour bridge on a Millennial New Year's Eve... Three thousand A.D. _was_ a good year..." The reverie seemed to pass and a sadness came over him as he continued, "Waiting for the audience to settle in a stadium in Nuremburg, and the rising, electrified sense of anticipation as the Fuerher ascends the podium..." The Doctor fell silent, thoughtful. He looked at Tegan, his eyes brilliant in the shadows of his downturned brow, "Being a part of the masses is one the most intensely exciting experiences you could ever hope to have... It is also one of the most terrifying. It's often said that the crowd has a will of its own. Well, now you know it's true. It is the herd instinct. It is the social sense." The Doctor tapped the side of his head, "It's in there, Tegan. It's a part of you. You cannot change that. The best that you can do..." He looked down at the mess of electronics cradled in his arms, and seemed to sigh, "The best that you can do is try to control it."

He dived back into the wiring again and Nyssa busied herself by lending a hand. Tegan stood in the only clear piece of floor space left, pondering a brood of new self-conceptions.

After a minute or so, she gave up. She shrugged,

"What are we going to do now, then?"

"Now?" The Doctor paused in his work. He straightened and considered for a moment, then replied, "Now, you, Nyssa and I are going to spend an hour or two getting the TARDIS back into perfect working order," he acknowledged an ironic look from Nyssa, "Well, as good a working order as she's ever been in. And then..." he looked away towards the still open doors and the landscape beyond them. "And then we're going to a funeral."

Tegan saw his expression stiffen slightly, his eyes staring into an intimate space filled with innumerable, endless corridors down which, maybe, countless memories ran and were lost, and faded away. He smiled over at her, but it was fleeting, and added softly, "I don't go to enough funerals."

"Should I fetch Adric?" asked Nyssa, thinking suddenly, "He can help with the re-wiring."

"No," replied the Doctor after a moment's consideration, "He'll come when he's ready. For now, I think, he has some ghosts of his own to lay to rest."


	18. Chapter 17

17.

The sky was pale and grey and green, and vast here in this low part of the world, and the sun sank in a bloody gash, bloated and raw above a land of silhouettes, the hard dark shapes of trees and slopes and banks of swaying reeds and the wide flat surface of the lake reflecting, bright like a sheet of copper.

A figure stood at the waterside, gilt-edged, tall like a standing stone. The dying light glowed on his pale face and gold blazed from the torque about his neck as he watched and waited in a landscape that became more gradually still.

Some time passed. Above the woods at the edge of the lake, a flock of birds whirled and wove intricate patterns in the air and drifted away.

Then, out of the still silence the figure moved, stepping forwards into the water, a peal of splashing breaking the quiet, golden sparks appearing about his ankles and rising around his legs as he waded deeper and then staggered to a halt.

He was holding something which he raised and then, with a violent twist of fists, he broke. He leaned forwards, lowering his hands and opening them above the wake that drifted out around him. Something fell in two parts, a small dark leaf-shaped blade and wooden handle, and splashed through the surface sinking down, spinning slowly, dully flashing, into the depths and out of sight.

The figure stayed there, at the centre of his circles, his feet in the darkness, his head in the rose-coloured dusk, a hand outstretched towards the surface of the water, the reflection of it reaching back.

The night came down around him. There were lights on the horizon, the mournful vivid fires of living people, with their rituals and their dances. All of it nonsense, he knew. But it meant something.


End file.
